A/N: Okay, I'm not going to make a big scene here, I really am not going to do that, the show must go on – but prepare for a bit of sadness here, although I promise (to avoid being promptly roasted) that all will turn out well. I am the Happy Ending Queen! All will be well! Okay, now on with the story. Here's some action scenes for ya.
Chapter Seventeen –
Nightmare
She was so beautiful when she slept – so absolutely perfect.
When he looked at her, he felt complete: he felt as if nothing else in the world could matter but her, and that she was all that he had ever wanted.
How absurd, would be the world's reaction to that thought, if he had voiced it out loud so that all ears could hear. How absolutely idiotic and utterly misled, the world would say – he was wealthy and influential and powerful, one of the reigning monarch's favorite comrades, and old enough to be the girl's father! And she was no more than an aspiring artist of an orphan, who was more perilously fair than dawn at the sea but so very, very young. How ridiculous, how unbelievably preposterous, for him to even begin to think that he could ever be with her – he, who was scarred and maimed beyond restoration, and she, who was the most beautiful creature that he had ever seen.
But all that he could think was, How incredible.
There was still a long journey ahead of them – their tale was not at its end yet. They had a long way to go before they could finally reach out and claim their freedom. However, as long as they were together… Somehow, they would come through it all.
So he prayed.
He looked back down at the girl whom he held close to him, both arms around her as she leaned against him, sleeping peacefully. They had left Paris late the night before, towards the end of the masque ball, and she was exhausted.
Seeing her as she dreamed reminded him of all the other times that he had watched her in the night: when he had tended her during her illness in her first days at his castle, when they had been on their way by sea to Italy and Milan, when she had fallen asleep near to him after both of them had barely escaped fiery deaths…
He remembered that last night vividly. In it, he had finally realized just how much he cared for her – and just to what lengths he would go to be with her always. He hadn't slept all that night; she didn't know that, and he would not probably tell her for a very long time, but the truth remained. He had been too fixated, too enchanted, by her very presence to take his eyes from her.
Their carriage rumbled on over the uneven, dusty dirt road that would eventually take them back to his castle, away from Paris, as the deep forest passed them by, and the early gray light of dawn began to grow in the sky.
Night was passing; day now came.
At length, she stirred within his arms, and he smiled down into her face when she breathed in deeply – contentedly – and finally let her green eyes flicker open. Then she smiled back at him, blissful and sleepy, just beginning to wake up.
"Mmm…where are we?" she murmured, snuggling her head against his chest, as if she really didn't want to leave whatever dream world she had just been in.
"On the road just past Troyes," he told her, gently. "On our way home."
Her face lit up at his mention of that word.
"Le Chateau de Rêves?" she inquired, eagerly, and he nodded, laughing softly at her excitement.
"Yes, ma petite," he replied, grinning, "Yes, le Chateau de Rêves – home, if you will…although that is not our final destination."
Clarice's smile broadened to match his, and her emerald green eyes sparkled, for she knew well what he had meant by that – they may be returning to the castle named, but one day in the not-so-distant future, their road would lead to a quite different place, a location depicted in the tapestry from Spain, which told the tale of the Irish hero Fionn Mac Cumhail and his fairy wife Saeve, and their son Oisin…
But, as for now…they were going home.
Leaning back against him once more and burying her head in his strong, protecting shoulder, she murmured, as a wave of complete, contented, warm happiness assailed her, "Anywhere with you."
"Anywhere in the world, Princess." was the whispered reply.
Lifting her head again, she looked up at him, her gaze scrutinizing and amused.
"Am I your princess?" she asked, and he regarded her silently, gravely for a moment, his yellow eyes unreadable from behind the mask. Then, he reached out and gently touched her cheek with his fingertips, brushing against it with the lightness and dexterity of a butterfly's wing. A long, solemn, tender moment passed in the carriage between the two. Then…
"Yes." he said: speaking as if he were making a vow. "You always were."
And then, still gazing into her eyes, he moved his fingers from her cheek to her chin, ever-so-delicately tipping it up and back, compelling her to move her head closer to his, and kissed her.
Clarice's eyes slipped closed, and she felt herself submerged in the wonderful world of his kiss, her hands moving to encircle him within her embrace. Erik's lips were soft and tender, surprisingly velvety, and everything about their touch captured her completely. His kiss was warm and comforting as a homecoming, fresh and exhilarating as the sun shining upon the white, untouched snow of an undiscovered, rugged mountain range, fiery and intense and passionate as the deserts of the Far East.
It made her feel both strong and weak, wise and untried, ancient and eternally young, and she knew that all her hopes, dreams, and longings were summed up in this man, who was dearer to her than life itself.
There was complete stillness in the air for a long while then, and the only words that were spoken were those that were in their hearts, not said by the voice or the tongue, but by the beating of their hearts and the strength of their embrace. When they broke, finally, Clarice found herself wrapped up in his arms, pulled to him longingly, almost desperately, as if he feared that she would slip away and leave him, like a dream in the night, were he to let go.
"You are my princess." he whispered, his voice husky and ardent. "You always were, and you are. And you always will be."
And how she believed him…
* * *
In the shadowy mists of the early autumn dawn, the carriage rolled to a stop in the middle of the road. Its two occupants, resting safely in one another's arms, felt that its regular forward motion had stopped, and, almost unknowingly, both tensed in confusion.
Why had they stopped?
Then, from the driver's seat atop the carriage, "Milord."
Swiftly, Erik glanced at Clarice, his yellow eyes looking at her with a frown darkening their golden depths, his lips firming into a straight, thin line, and told her, "It's nothing, in all likeliness. Stay here."
Confused and slightly afraid, the girl simply nodded: her own green eyes bereft of all emotion and light, leaving them blank. Mastering his conflicting premonitions about the scene that was now before him, Erik opened the door of the carriage and stepped out onto the step, hanging off the wooden frame by one hand. He was about to reply to the driver's summons when he saw something…and it was something that froze the blood within his veins.
The driver wasn't there.
And behind the carriage, the footmen were also gone.
The hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle, icy-hot.
What is going on?
Around him, the dusty road was completely empty but for a few stones scattered here and there, and the ruts left by the passage of many other carriages, wagons, and the like. The forest was dark, enshrouded in mist – and suddenly very threatening. His yellow eyes now scanned it with apprehension and guardedness; and he suddenly knew—
Something was very, very wrong.
The next moment was a blur of frenzied movement: Erik whirled around, reacting in the nick of time, catching by the wrist the hooded man who was in the act of attempting to stab him between the shoulder blades with a glittering, ivory-hilted dagger. With his free hand, upon which he wore the heavy, chunky gold ring that bore the insignia of the d'Auberie house, he dealt his assailant a rough, hard blow to the temple, which sent the man reeling backwards to fall to the ground, unconscious.
Erik leapt down from the step after him, snatching up the fallen thug's weapon in a split second, and looked up.
By then, the roadside around him was bristling with more dark, hooded figures. They were all brandishing very different, very deadly weapons, and they were all slowly advancing on him. And they were all just about to taste his wrath.
Erik slammed the door to the carriage and stood with his back to it – whoever wanted to get to it would have to go through him first.
And it seemed that they were ready to hazard just this.
Pandemonium broke out. He was attacked on all sides by hooded brigands, who fought furiously and savagely, pressing in on him with a will to win. One after another he fell, finally attaining the sword from one of them in the process. Thus enabled, he whirled about, slashing with the blade and using both his hands and feet to drive back his attackers. Devastating uppercut to one man's jaw here, parry and then lunge with the sword there; lash out with a booted foot here, duck to avoid decapitation there.
On and on it went, but for every man that he defeated, two more seemed to spring up to take his place. Then, he heard a furious, terror-stricken female scream from the other side of the carriage, behind him.
"Erik!"
NO!
Two thugs had found their way in through the door on the other side of the carriage, unbeknownst to him as he fought his current assailants, and now they were dragging a struggling Clarice across the road and towards the woods, as she fought against them with teeth, nails, and feet, striking out in every possible way. With a burst of energy brought on by sheer rage, he lunged out of the circle of men around him, trying to get to her.
"Clarice!"
But then someone tackled him from behind. A wordless cry of extreme fury and desperation escaping him, Erik went down, borne to the ground by the weight of his attacker, his sword flying out of his hand and out of his reach. Then, there, in the middle of the dusty road, he grappled with the hooded man who had sprung upon him. Noiselessly, they both strived to gain the upper hand, and then the man pulled out a gleaming dagger, pushing it down – down – down, until it came perilously close to Erik's eye. If he moved but a fraction of an inch the wrong way, if his grip on the man's wrist slid but a little – he could already feel the cold silver blade against the fringe of his eyelashes, nicking against them. Again, Clarice's cry: "Erik! Let me go! Erik!"
There was no time to think. Only time to react.
His hand groped in the dust, blindly searching – and finally he found what he was looking for. A rock.
The man with the dagger felt his prey's arm slip out from underneath him, and then all he saw was a flash of blinding white light, and darkness.
Erik shoved the body of his assailant off of himself and rolled to the side, reclaiming his sword, and vaulted to his feet, then took off running towards the place where he had last seen Clarice. Her capturers had dragged her into the woods; evidence of her struggle was there, in torn grass and snapped branches.
From within the trees, "Erik!"
"Clarice! I'm coming!"
Thud.
Attacked from behind again. Only this time, his assailant had had the presence of mind to grab him around the ankles and pull, causing him to fall backwards and down to the ground, the wind knocked clean out of his lungs, blackness welling in the corners of his vision. Pain stabbed into his chest as he tried to breathe; his surroundings seemed to whirl around him, the world looked as if it was bucking like an angered wild stallion. Pain pain pain. Agony at the knowledge of…
"Defeat."
No. No no no no no. No, this cannot be. No. No no no…
Two highly polished, gleaming leather boots appeared on the ground just in front of his face, and Erik knew that he was expected to look up, to turn his head to the sky – to his far-superior, gloating captor – and look like the helpless, hapless prey that he was.
Never!
But even if he didn't look up and directly see the person who now stood before him, he couldn't keep the image of the face that belonged to that voice from invading his mind. That arrogant, reptilian, cold, mocking, pseudo-urbane, smooth and slick as an oil-spill voice—
"It's over, you pathetic fool. You should have known better than to fight – you've escaped us these last few times, but now the day of reckoning…has come. Your past has caught up to you, and now it demands to exact the debt that you owe. It's over."
Rough hands coming around his arms, pulling him up from the ground, forcing him to stand, revealing to him the horror that he now stood in the midst of: a ring of glaring, menacing hooded men, completely surrounding him. A flash of light gray…
Oh no…
Clarice. They had Clarice.
Suddenly, the owner of the voice that had spoken to him stepped forward, a hand coming up to clamp around his chin, forcing him to turn his head. Cold yellow eyes that burned with a fire of pure, inexhaustible hatred met the steely frigidness of gray eyes, and the two worst enemies in all of Renaissance Europe met, boring into each other.
Erik, the Count d'Auberie.
Armand, the Marquis de Mercier.
From her position between her two guards, Clarice stared in utter frozen terror and helplessness, to the place across the road from her where the man she cared for the most, and the man that she hated the most, stood facing one another in silence. She watched as the Marquis pulled back, his reptilian gray eyes never leaving his nemesis, and gloated at him, reveling in his success.
They'd lost, he crowed: all of their evasions had been for naught, they were captured – they were his, and their mission was a shambles. Then, he crossed the road and grabbed her by the arm.
His touch was cold and stony, like that of a marble statue, and loathsome as the vilest rodent. Clarice writhed and struggled against him as he tried to pull her forward; she heard Erik give a wordless cry of rage, and then the Marquis's hand swept into the air, stiffening in preparation to give a blow. She turned her head aside, waiting – and then she heard the arrogant young nobleman's voice, raised in high exultation and barely veiled threat as he called to his enemy, the Count.
"She's quite lovely, Erik – even I really have to admit that; but don't you think that she would look somewhat less appealing if she was to gain a mottled, swollen purple mark somewhere on that pretty face? Move again, trollop," he suddenly snarled directly into her face, eyes flashing an icy gray fire, "and I'll make certain that you receive the proper pains for it!"
Then, to Erik again, "I thank you, my friend, for procuring the last piece of the puzzle for us – I am certain that it will prove to be very helpful! 'Tis only too unfortunate that you will never see the fruits of your and this little wanton's efforts come to fruition."
And to his men, "To horse – we leave directly."
To a huge, brawny thug, with a jerk of his head towards her, his cold hand still gripping her arm with the clasp of steel, "You, take her. I won't have her running off and deserting us before our lovely little game truly begins."
And he smiled at her, cruelly and maliciously.
Clarice felt the ground turn to water beneath her feet.
The thug swept her up onto his mount, a looming draft horse of some sort, and she found herself held so tightly that she could not even move, much less struggle. She was captured, they were lost – and there was nothing to be done about it.
She watched as the Marquis turned, leaving her…and moved towards Erik.
There was something in his hand.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Bile rose in the back of her throat and she felt paralyzed with horror and powerlessness, icy needles pricking all of her skin—
" 'Tis only too unfortunate." murmured the Marquis.
Slash.
Erik looked helplessly, almost in shocked disbelief, into the cold gray eyes of his worst enemy, then down to his stomach, as the Marquis's hand left the silver hilt of the dagger that he had just plunged into his defenseless enemy.
Slowly, as one in a waking nightmare, he moved his own hands down to the silver hilt, touching it with fingertips that began to tremble…as blood: thick, scarlet blood, began to stream down his skin, staining his white silken shirt.
Erik fell to his knees, unable to move, to think, to do or say anything, his vision blurring, becoming darker – darker, and the Marquis left him there, in the middle of the road. Rendered paralyzed by shock and the agony that was beginning to grow in his being, spreading from his torso to each and every part of his body, he simply stared at the ground, struggling to breathe.
Then there was a thundering commotion of horse hooves on the road, galloping past him and enveloping him in a choking dust there in the dawn.
He heard a ragged, wild voice of a young girl driven mad by grief, and it was calling out his name, over and over in hysterical despair: "Erik – Erik, no! Erik!"
Further and further away it went.
Then, one final time, "ERIK!"
Silence.
It's over.
Wracked with the tremors that were brought on by shock, his lips going blue and his skin a deadly, ashen white, Erik remained upright for a moment longer, and then let himself slump to the ground, his eyes slipping closed as the blackness overwhelmed him.
Nothingness.
* * *
A/N: Now, if I may quote the spectacular example of 1980's filmmaking, the Princess Bride – "The eels don't get her at this time. Now I wanted you to know this, because you were starting to look nervous." Or something to that effect. (Jeez, I've been watching the movie ever since I was three, and I still can't get the lines exactly right? WOW) So, like the Grandfather said, don't look so perturbed. The Marquis hasn't gotten Erik yet. I said "Nothingness"…but that, my friends, is a world different than "The End". R&r, and the final chapters of this story will be up soon!
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