A/N: Thank you beeblegirl for reviewing! Fingers crossed this chapter goes up without a hitch...

Chapter 3

Porthos felt groggy and his head ached. He was aware enough to register the hard floor beneath his supine body and the tinkle of water somewhere, but that was it. Until something pressed down on his leg and fire erupted through it.

He bolted upright, lashing his hands out to seize his assailant's throat. "What are you doing?" he growled.

The woman grunted and shoved his rather weak grip off of her. "Making sure you don't bleed to death," she snapped. "If that leg becomes infected, you'll lose it."

He fell back on the wooden floor with pained moans.

"Is there much demand for one-legged musketeers?" the girl—Samara, she must have been—went on brusquely. "Not that you were much more use with two."

Porthos gaped at her in disbelief while trying to ride out the waves of agony. "Not much of a nurse are ya," he retorted, gripping the support beam beside him to lever himself upright.

"I'm not a nurse. I'm a poet." She tossed the bloody wet rag into his lap and stood up. "Fix your own leg."

Porthos panted as he shifted to get a look around the barren room with a few rags and jugs sitting randomly on the floor. "Where are we?"

"Baltasar's safe house."

Well, shit.

Porthos tried to get to his feet, crying out as his thigh jolted with each tiny bit of movement from the crossbow bolt sticking out of it just above the knee. He couldn't bend his leg at all or support any weight, and he ended up pitching sideways and barely catching himself with one hand on the floor.

"Are you in pain?" Samara asked.

Porthos took a moment to lean awkwardly against the column behind him, breaths still coming short and fast. "Yeah. A little bit," he huffed.

"Something went wrong with the exchange," she said.

"Yeah, your father lied to us and nearly got you killed. That's what went wrong." And now he had a bloody bolt sticking out of his leg and was imprisoned by the Spanish.

"He trusted you French to save us and you made a mess of everything," she shot back angrily.

Porthos hobbled his way over to the next support column, catching himself against it with a grunt.

"It's locked," Samara said pointedly, apparently having guessed his intention to make it to the door. "And Baltasar has men guarding the house."

Of course he did. Porthos debated for a second whether to stubbornly keep going before a wave of dizziness overcame him and he fell onto his back on the hard floor. Damn it.

Samara walked over to a small nest of a blanket and took a seat, picking up a book. "I'm going to read now. If you decide to die, please, do it quietly."

Porthos lifted himself up and reached for his leg, only to abort the movement and collapse again. Yeah, this was really not good.

After a few minutes of getting his breathing under control, he carefully leveraged himself up again, gritting his teeth against the fresh burst of pain, and began dragging himself back to the other column. The effort cost him and he was shaking by the time he'd gotten himself propped up against it. Shaking which only ignited more fire in his leg, and it was taking all his willpower to try to hold still and not aggravate it further.

"It must hurt," Samara spoke up. "Cry if you want."

"No, thank you," he replied shakily, then choked on a gasp.

"What is your name?" she asked, nicer than before.

"Porthos." He let out a shuddering breath. "We need to get out."

"What are you going to do?" she replied dryly. "Punch through the walls?"

Porthos nodded jerkily. "If it comes to it." Better than just sitting here waiting for the Spanish to decide what to do with them. He looked down at the wooden shaft protruding from his leg and reached out to grasp it.

But just a single touch sent streaks of lightning through the muscle and he reeled back with a pained grunt.

"What's the book?" he asked, desperate for a distraction.

"Poems. By the mystic Umar Ibn al-Farid." She paused. "Do you read Arabic?"

Porthos shook his head. "I'm not a Moor. I'm French."

"You might have been born in this country, but that doesn't make you French," Samara said scornfully. "In their eyes, you are at best an exotic stranger, at worst a mongrel."

Porthos wanted to roll his eyes, but the pain was too consuming for him to do anything other than bite back another strangled sound.

"I am a Moor," Samara went on. "I'm going home to Morocco. Where are you from?"

"France," he replied tersely, but then faltered. "And Africa," he admitted. "On my mother's side."

"Which part of Africa?"

Porthos realized he didn't know. It'd never mattered to him, and his mother had never taught him anything about it. Or maybe he'd been too young to remember any details like that.

Samara's words stung, though, because there was truth in them. Just recently he'd had the displeasure of meeting a French slave trader, a man who had no qualms about buying men, women, and children like chattel all because of their skin color.

"Well," Samara continued at his silence, "wherever it was, that is where you belong. In the end, your adopted country will betray you, as mine did me."

Porthos lifted his head and turned to look at her. "I know who I am," he said staunchly. "And what I am." He shifted his gaze to the crossbow bolt. He was a musketeer, dammit.

He clamped one hand around the base of the shaft and grasped it with the other, steeling himself as he started to pull with all his might. His strength was hampered by the pain, though, and after only a few moments, it became too much and he had to stop, throwing his head back with a loud cry.

He heard Samara sigh. "Would you like to hear some poetry?" she asked.

"I'd prefer a brandy," he gasped, tossing a look her way.

She actually smiled at that. "Poetry is all I have."

"Poetry it is, then." He'd take anything to help distract from the agony in his leg. Anything other than talk of lost heritages and the reality of racism he'd rather pretend didn't affect him.

Samara started to read, her voice and the cadence of the words washing over him. Porthos closed his eyes and focused on that, praying his brothers found a way to rescue them.

.o.0.o.

Athos stood in the doorway between his outer office and bedchamber, watching Aramis pace back and forth across the room, hands clasped against his ears trying to drown out the voices only he could hear from ghosts only he could see. Every so often he would flinch, though from what Athos could only guess.

The door swung open and Treville stormed in, looking very much like the enraged captain that used to rake his men over the coals for shoddy work.

"What happened?" he demanded.

Athos flicked a concerned glance at Aramis, but the marksman was so consumed by his ghosts that he didn't seem to register Treville's loud entrance. Athos moved away from the doorframe and proceeded to recount what had gone wrong, feeling more like a lieutenant again than a captain himself.

Treville gaped at him, looking like he didn't even know where to start. "Alaman never had the cipher," he finally said.

"No."

Treville exhaled sharply and shifted in place as though he wanted to hit or throw something. Athos understood the feeling. Treville then turned his attention to the bedroom and walked over to peer through the open door at Aramis, his expression pinching.

"It's worse than when my wife sent my brother's ghost to me," Athos said quietly. "From what I gathered in his more lucid moments, he's seeing every musketeer who died at Savoy. And hearing them, though I don't know what they're saying."

Nothing good, by the looks of it.

Treville's mouth thinned into a tight line. "I can put Rochefort on Milady's trail again, but with Porthos now a hostage of the Spanish and the cipher in their hands—and we can only hope they don't realize they have it—"

"I know," Athos interrupted. The Musketeers had to focus their attentions on rescuing Porthos and Samara and obtaining the cipher. "Rhaego should be able to track Porthos."

Treville nodded. "Hurry. No doubt the King will hear of what happened in the square soon."

Footsteps drew their attention to the outer door as d'Artagnan and Constance hurried inside.

"How is he?" Constance immediately asked.

Athos stepped aside so she could see for herself.

Aramis had stopped pacing and had slid down to the floor in the corner, rocking in place.

"We'll rescue Porthos first," Athos said. "Then do what we can to help Aramis." He nodded to Constance. "Thank you for staying with him."

"Of course," she said, casting a worried look around at them all. "Bring him home."

He gave a staunch nod and the rest of them headed out. Athos had already summoned a host of dragon riders to get ready to accompany them. Subtlety had been utilized before and failed; this time he was going to bring a full show of force.

.o.0.o.

Falkor watched the mass of dragons leave the garrison next door with disinterest. He disliked being around all these other dragons. Even before his imprisonment, he had been the sole dragon on the Comte de Rochefort's estate, not to mention their witch hunting ventures had been solitary missions with just the two of them.

Falkor wanted to be back home, not here in Paris and not in this dragon compound with a pair of piddly humans and one infant female trying to fuss over him.

"Falkor!" Rochefort's grating voice resounded across the yard.

Falkor turned his head wearily toward his rider as Rochefort strode toward him.

"We must make another search for the witch," he pronounced, holding out a bronze compass with various sigil work etched all along the sides. "This time I will pierce the veil of her counter spells with a bit of magic on my end."

Falkor narrowed his eyes scathingly. Humans shouldn't dare touch magic; he thought his rider understood that.

Rochefort rolled his eyes. "Don't look at me like that. Desperate times call for desperate measures. This witch has proven too elusive thus far, and if we do not catch her soon, the King will have us both thrown out."

If that meant they could go home, Falkor didn't see a problem with that. He grumbled low in his throat and turned his head away.

"Get up, damn you," Rochefort hissed.

Falkor snorted and didn't move. He had no intention of helping his rider if the human insisted on using spelled articles in his work.

"You useless creature!" Rochefort spat.

"Is something wrong?" the dragon keeper's voice interrupted.

Rochefort straightened abruptly. "I require a dragon for an errand on behalf of the King," he replied smoothly. He was always good at covering like that. "But Falkor doesn't seem up to it. Would you provide another for me to use?"

Bonacieux hesitated for a brief moment before nodding. "I can get Zhar for you again."

"Fine."

Bonacieux went off to retrieve the other dragon.

Falkor could feel Rochefort's glower boring into the back of his head but he ignored it. This was a matter in which he had no room for compromise. Magic was sacred and no human was to ever, ever touch it.