Warning: Very graphic descriptions ahead.

XXI. Amidst a Crashing World

The west shore of Ré Island, ten minutes earlier

"Has anyone known about this place?" It was Philippe's voice that attracted the attention of Aramis and the rest of the group. Aramis was kneeling in front of what once used to be a window, his injured leg sprawled sideways. The glass of the window had been shattered, and now provided enough space so Aramis' and Arthur's muskets could aim at the path that ended right in front of the farmhouse.

The rest of the group was covering the other windows, and it was only Philippe who was still standing, pacing restlessly. As he had been told, Aramis had led the group of marksmen to the farmhouse Suard had designated. It had been abandoned for a while by the looks of it, and the musketeers had immediately made their way up to the attic of the building. Through the windows, they had a clear sight to the north, east and south. Since the English troops would be heading towards them from the south-east, Aramis had made sure that most of the marksmen were covering that specific area.

"Suard just said he and the patrol discovered it this morning," Aramis explained, not diverting his gaze for a moment. "He didn't see the need to explain himself to me."

"Or to us in general" Arthur, next to Aramis, grunted.

"He said he'll chase the English in our direction. Keep your eyes open, shoot on sight" Aramis admonished, trying to get the men to focus back on their task.

"What if no one's coming?" Philippe asked, with evident skepticism in his voice, which Aramis couldn't hold against him.

He rolled his eyes. "Then Suard and the others were unsuccessful, and they, as well as the civilians, who were left unguarded in the fortress, are probably dead." He couldn't help but feel bitter about it.

Arthur exhaled slowly. "Nothing I look forward to."

Philippe just grunted and a sudden, loud smashing sound behind him urged Aramis to turn around. Philippe had used the hilt of his musket to tear a hole into the windowless side of the outer wall, the one facing the ocean.

"What, are you expecting the English to swim to safety?" Eric asked with a hint of annoyance in his voice, but Aramis managed to shut him up with the power of a look. He did not want to be the leader of these men, but he had to be at the moment, whether he liked it or not. He furrowed his brow, but he kept his eyes on the path where his musket was pointing.

"What are you doing Philippe?" he asked calmly, making sure not to raise his voice too high. One never knew who was listening.

"Tryin' to get a clear look…damn it." By the sounds of it, Philippe was struggling with tearing the wooden beams apart. Aramis just prayed that it wouldn't lead to the roof falling down on their heads.

"The chance that the English are escaping with their boats is close to zero," Aramis explained calmly. He appreciated Phillippe's worry, but he also wanted the musketeer to focus on their current task. "The waters are too dangerous."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, it's just…" Phillippe's voice trailed off and when Aramis turned to look at him, he was staring through the newly-made hole, as if he was lost in thought.

"Phillippe!" Aramis demanded a little louder, and a little harsher this time, having difficulty hiding his annoyance. He didn't have the time to console or calm another man down at the moment; he was busy enough trying to keep himself focused.

"Aramis, Arthur, you should have a look at this," Phillippe suddenly urged, completely ignoring everything else that had been said. It was the honest worry paired with a tinge of fear that had Aramis not questioning Phillippe's statement.

He and Arthur shared a quick look before they handed their muskets to their neighbors and stood up, joining their comrade near the hole. Aramis gently pushed Phillippe aside to have a look at what had bothered his brother-in-arms so deeply.

It didn't take him long to find the origin of Phillippe's worry. The white colors on the sea weren't low clouds, nor were they remains of a foggy night. Those were sails. Aramis narrowed his eyes and was able to see the frame of the mast, as well as the wooden outlines of a bow. His gaze wandered down, and he could see wooden planks and boxes floating in the water, being torn apart as soon as they collided with the rocky cliffs.

A battle, Aramis thought, a naval battle. The question was, who had won? His eyes trailed back towards the mast, and he blinked rapidly in order to see what flag the vessel was flying. And there it was.

"Merde, Aramis hissed, and made space so that Arthur could have a look too. This was not the French drapeau blanc. "Those are English ships. And they are close."

"Why didn't Suard mention this?" Arthur asked, but he received no answer and the tension in the room suddenly grew enormously.

"English soldiers!" That was Eric's frantic alert, and without even waiting for further instructions, the marksmen that were still in position opened fire.

Aramis jumped at the sound, and while his eyes were glued to the sails of the English ships, realization hit him. A thought crossed his mind, dark and full of panic. That Suard had known about these ships.

"Stop!" he yelled, throwing all senses of caution away. "Hold your fire, abandon your posts."

The cadet who was with them kept reloading and shooting, but the musketeers immediately stopped. "What…?" Aramis could hear, but he cut off any other comments, and ran over towards the cadet kicking the musket out of his hands

"Out, we have to…"

A loud bang silenced him, and then another one followed closely. Aramis froze, and a delayed realization hit him. As the seconds seemed to move slower and slower, Aramis could feel the destruction coming closer. In a desperate attempt to do something, he grabbed Arthur by the collar and pulled him to the ground, knowing that it was pointless, but hoping nevertheless.

It hit them with the force of a thousand earthquakes. One moment, they were all frozen in shock, and the next one, their world was drowned by deafening crashing sounds and splintered wood flying in all directions, catching fire and devouring their shelter.

Aramis vaguely felt the floor giving in underneath his feet, and he felt himself falling.

And then, all that remained was darkness.

Porthos' heart was racing. His gaze wandered from Athos to Théo and then back to Athos, trying to comprehend what had happened. And anger, strong, wild and dangerous started to build up in his heart, overpowering every other emotion.

"Fire on my command," Athos bellowed and all the musketeers that stood close enough to hear him grabbed their pistols and got into position. Porthos prepared his shot and took a deep breath to calm himself, knowing that storming into the crowd blindly would do no good.

On Athos' command, the musketeers leaned out of cover, taking their shots and then charging forward with their rapiers drawn. Out of the corners of his eyes, Porthos saw Suard engaged in a duel with two English soldiers, and he had to restrain himself in order not to join them against his own commanding officer. He kept running next to Athos, and he could see how the English General's eyes were resting on the two of them. He recognized Porthos, and he noticed the way Athos was leading the other half of the musketeers in the midst of the battlefield. But instead of trying to challenge them to a duel, he retreated, and sent a dozen English soldiers against them instead.

Porthos threw himself into the battle again, not thinking twice. His sword clashed hard against another soldier's weapon, and the impact threw his opponent off his feet. Porthos didn't waste one minute and finished the duel, just in time to turn around and avoid being beheaded by a second enemy. He dove underneath the blade and punched forward, catching the man in the throat. The English soldier gasped for air, and with another precise punch, Porthos knocked him out.

He turned his head to look for Athos, but his friend wasn't where he had been only minutes before. Porthos frantically searched the battle scene, and finally spotted Athos two dozen feet away, close to the water and encircled by four English soldiers. Under normal circumstances, Porthos wouldn't have worried as Athos could have taken them out easily, but these weren't usual circumstances. Athos only had one useful arm, and was far from his best form due to the past weeks they had spent on this damn island.

Porthos roared indignantly and crossed the distance between them within seconds, throwing himself onto two of the English soldiers, pulling them down with him. They landed in the water, and Porthos immediately stabbed forward with the iron rod he still had in his left hand, impaling one of the soldiers through the upper body. He didn't have a second to breathe, as he felt a forceful kick against his wrist that forced him to drop the weapon. Another kick brought him down on the ground and for a moment, he was underwater, with the cold, salty liquid pouring into his lungs.

He grabbed his main gauche with his free left hand and coughed out the water, blindly stabbing forward. The disgusting sound assured him that his blade had found a target.

Athos, to Porthos' left, was knee deep in the water, struggling with an English soldier in hand to hand combat. The English soldier was trying to force Athos underwater, but the musketeer was resisting with all his remaining strength, having his hands clasped around his opponent's throat. Both of them were shaking violently.

"A little….help here," Porthos heard Athos say through clenched teeth, and Porthos was urged back into action, completely forgetting about the fourth enemy nearby. He was halfway there when he noticed the fourth soldier had abandoned the fight and was running into the ocean. He made the decision in a split second and gestured to Athos, throwing him his main gauche with a precise and trained move.

Athos caught it, and Porthos knew that his friend would manage. He caught the English soldier, and grabbed him by the shoulder. He did not know why he was trying to stop the man, unarmed as he was, but it was easy to forget in the midst of a battlefield. He hadn't paid enough attention, and he did not see the attack coming.

Porthos was forcefully knocked against the head, and through his blurry vision, he saw the few remaining English soldiers running towards the wooden boat floating in the shallow water, the only escape route open to them, as the beach was held by the French musketeers.

"They are running!" Porthos' voice, even in its weakened state, managed to overpower the noises of the fires burning and the men yelling. A sharp sense of relief ran through his body, but he didn't allow himself to let his guard down yet. Porthos ran a hand over his sweat-bathed forehead, wiping the blood out of his eyes. He wasn't well, and he knew it, but he had to keep going. For his brothers, and for the sake of his own sanity.

His eyes found Athos, who was on his knees about ten feet away from him. The swordsman was breathing heavily, and leaning on his rapier, his clothes dripping with water and blood. His hair was soaked too. Porthos approached him, slowly, but instead of helping his friend to stand, he too collapsed to his knees.

It took both of them a good minute to realize the battle was over, and the smoke of the fires was softly drifting over the corpses and abandoned weapons on the battlefield. The remaining musketeers were all standing scattered over the destroyed camp, their eyes glued to the forest through which most of the English soldiers had escaped.

Porthos' eyes found Athos', and he knew what would come next.

"Athos, the cannons," Porthos began, but he didn't need to continue.

"Yes, I know." Athos looked up at him. "Aramis."

"We have to," Porthos continued breathlessly, but Athos cut him off once again, one hand resting against his throat.

"I know," Athos repeated, "and I'll go and…" he swallowed hard. "You know. But right now, there are dozens of English soldiers swarming the area between Saint-Blanceau and the fortress. And the civilians were left unprotected in our fortress."

Porthos hated it, but he understood the sense in Athos' words.

"What about the fallen?" Porthos asked, his eyes glued to the ground.

Athos' voice sounded very distant in his ears. "We don't have the ability to bury them at the moment." It sounded cruel, it sounded unfaithful. But if all the marksmen were dead too, they had lost about half of their men today. Athos was right, whether they liked it or not.

"And the General?" Porthos growled, "What about Suard?"

Athos' face turned to stone. "Aramis knew something Suard was scared of. And Suard tried to kill him." Porthos realized how in Athos' words, Aramis wasn't dead. That there was a chance he had survived and seen through the trap. "Which means you and I, we have to be very cautious. We'll hear what he has to say, and then we'll take the measures necessary."

Porthos nodded grimly and looked into the distance, in the direction the English troops had fled. "The Butcher ran," Porthos murmured. "Lord Eadmund escaped."

"He will return," Athos commented, his voice hollow. "And he'll bring Buckingham with him this time."

Porthos' eyes were glued to the remains of the camp. "So Suard's plan will bring Buckingham right to our door."

Athos swallowed, before he squeezed Porthos' shoulder with all the assurance he could bring himself to show. His face was dark. "…and we'll be at his mercy. But Suard, he will be at ours."

Pain. That was the first thing Aramis registered. And the feeling that he was suffocating. With a loud gasp, he opened his eyes widely, taking in a rattling breath that resulted in a miserable cough; whirling dust filled the air and a thin layer of ashes covered everything. He squeezed his eyes shut to clear his blurry vision and the more he became aware of his surroundings, the more he felt terror gripping his heart.

He was lying between two piles of broken, wooden beams and planks, the ones that used to be the floor they had been standing on. There was a dull, painful sensation in his upper back, and as he tried to move, he realized that his left, already damaged, leg was trapped in a pile of rubble and wood. Aramis had the scent of smoke in his nose, and he considered himself more than lucky that this farmhouse hadn't been built entirely of wood, otherwise, he would have burned to death. One or two of the wooden piles were still burning, but the rain that was falling down on them through the hole in the ceiling had extinguished most of the other flames.

Aramis tried to prop up on his elbows, but all breath was sucked out of his lungs as a bolt of pain shot through his upper back, and he reached back to grab a piece of wood embedded in his flesh. He took a few breaths to even his heartbeat, and without hesitation, he pulled it out. A loud and pained gasp escaped his throat, and he quickly bit down on his sleeve. He did not know if there was anyone else here, but he did not want to alert any enemy soldiers to possible survivors. He could feel warm liquid soak the back of his shirt, but the adrenaline that started to flow through his veins helped him to ignore it.

He propped up on his elbows again, and used all of his remaining strength to pull his leg out from under the pile of rubble. He had been lucky he hadn't been buried deeper, and that he hadn't been hit by one of the cannon balls directly. Once he was free, he scrambled to his knees, and he took a few seconds to take note of his situation. His eyes found the pile from which he had just freed himself.

He swallowed frantically to keep the bile from rising in his throat at what he saw. It was the musketeer Eric, buried in the rubble up to his chest. A piece of metal had impaled him from behind, and stuck out near his neck. His eyes were closed. Aramis realized that he probably had been impaled by his own musket when the cannons had destroyed their position.

He knelt down on the rubble, pushing it off the body and he cupped Eric's face between his hands. "Hey, wake up. Come on," Aramis brought out between clenched teeth, but there was no movement in the other musketeer's body, and deep inside, Aramis knew that those were fatal injuries. Yet, he felt obliged to try. He brought two fingers up to Eric's neck, just to be sure. There was nothing.

"Aramis." It was a faint voice, barely audible to Aramis' ears, that called for him, but it was the one spark of hope he needed. He turned his head toward the sound and started climbing over rock and wood to get there. It wasn't too far from his own position, and a small sense of relief flooded his senses when he spotted Arthur, on the ground, leaning awkwardly against one of the ruined walls. There was blood running down his forehead, and he had one arm wrapped around his chest in a protective manner. Blood was leaking through his fingers, though Aramis couldn't see the origin of it.

"You aren't dead," Arthur greeted him with a bleak, half-hearted grin, and coughed out a mouthful of dust. "You looked dead."

Aramis stumbled towards him and fell to his knees, overcome by a new coughing fit as it swirled the dust around. "This island has been trying to get rid of me for five years now. I'm hard to kill, I guess."

Arthur stared at him blankly. "This task of Suard's worked out well," he spat dryly, and Aramis suddenly felt guilt crushing down on him. He had been in charge of this operation after all.

He took a few breaths and fixed Arthur with a stern glance. "We have to get out of here. Can you stand?"

"I don't know," Arthur admitted and held out a hand, asking for help. Aramis grabbed it firmly and used whatever strength he had left to pull them both to their feet. They both lost their balance, but they managed to prevent their ultimate fall to the ground. Arthur just nodded, signaling his comrade that he could manage.

"Help me see if anybody else made it." Aramis' voice sounded very distant to his own ears.

Arthur nodded and half-stumbled, half dragged himself to the other side of the ruins that had once been their shelter. Aramis continued to look on their side.

It took them about twenty minutes, though they felt every minute as half an eternity. Aramis' vision began to swam, as unshed tears of shock gathered in his eyes with every body he found. The musketeer Dénis, a marksman and their architect, had been hit by a cannonball close by. The left side of his body had been torn apart, and the skin had been shredded and burned so deeply that Aramis had been able to see parts of Dénis' internal organs he had never wished to see. The second body he had found had been Dorian, a musketeer who had served in the regiment as long as Aramis. He had been alive when Aramis had found him, trapped beneath a wooden beam, but the wooden splinters that had buried themselves in his throat had been fatal only moments after. Aramis had merely managed to be a consoling presence at the end.

He couldn't help but remember the first missions he had undertaken. He hadn't felt the brotherhood of the musketeers as intensely before he had met Athos and Porthos, but Dorian had been a good friend, and due to his seniority and experience, he had taken Aramis under his wing for the first months. It was hard to imagine they would never share a night at the tavern together again.

Arthur reported that he had found Pierre, one of the more promising cadets, also beyond saving. Aramis felt it in every bone in his body, exhaustion, pain and hopelessness. Just when he was about to give up, he heard Arthur's voice, filled with dark excitement.

"Aramis! Over here!"

Almost blindly, he stumbled towards Arthur's voice, hoping to find another survivor. Arthur was kneeling on the ground, outside of the building close to the remains of a fire. Next to him, sprawled unconscious on the ground, Aramis recognized Phillippe. And he felt the bile rising in his throat again. Where Phillippe's eyes once had been was now only red and open flesh, bleeding sluggishly and painting his neck red. He had a head wound, and his arm was broken, judging by the angle of the limb.

Aramis pulled himself together. This was not the time to forget his duty, nor was it the time to give up on the others. He knelt down on Phillippe's other side, and put two fingers against the man's neck, watching the slow rise and fall of the chest patiently.

"Is he..?" Arthur asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. He was doubled over in pain, his arm pressed tightly around his midsection.

"Alive," Aramis answered, "but unconscious."

"You think the others…that they'll look for us?" Arthur's voice was doubtful. And Aramis had some doubts himself. He knew that Athos and Porthos would turn over every stone, but first, they had to survive Suard's plan concerning Saint-Blanceau. And if that was the case, they had probably seen or heard that this location had been torn to shreds. Aramis still believed his survival to be a miracle or a good amount of luck, though the numb pain in his shoulder and the blurry vision reminded him of what he had just been through.

"They will," he heard himself answer eventually, "but we have to get out of here. There are English soldiers fleeing from the beach. We shot at them earlier." He took a moment to cough out some more dust. "We have to find another shelter."

"There's a path, not far from here," Arthur panted, and Aramis could see that his teeth were stained red as well. "Saw it earlier. It leads down the cliffs. Perhaps there is a shelter down there. Don't think…they will look there."

Aramis nodded, stood up and swayed dangerously, but as soon as he had solid footing, he pulled Arthur to his feet too. "I don't think I can handle Phillippe alone," he murmured, and Arthur understood and waved with his free hand.

"I'll manage."

Together, they lifted the motionless body of Phillippe, and they started the long and torturous way towards the path and down the cliffs. Arthur's legs gave way twice; Aramis lost his balance once, and Phillippe didn't show any sign of consciousness all the way. The position of the sun told them it was afternoon, and the dark clouds that began to form right above them spoke of a lot more rain to come.

When they had finally reached the bottom of the cliffs, there was a thin line of sand, only about three meters wide, separating the tall rocks and the sea.

"There. Just a little further," Aramis said as he felt Phillippe's dead weight more and more. Arthur too was panting heavily. Aramis felt the sweat running down his forehead, and his lungs were burning, but he spotted a hollow in one of the tall rocks and he and Arthur began to drag Phillippe towards it. Once they were there, they dropped to the ground, wheezing for air and holding their battered bodies.

Aramis closed his eyes. They had been seven. Only three had survived, though Aramis wasn't sure whether they would survive the night.

The ships. It was only a guess, but Aramis had a feeling it hadn't been a coincidence that Suard had sent him here, and something told him that the General had known about the ships too. And it had cost the lives of four good men, perhaps more, judging by their conditions. The images of the victims up in the farmhouse flashed in front of his inner eye, and his gaze rested on the open flesh that had taken Phillippes sight.

Athos. Porthos. Aramis' mind clung to the thought of his brothers coming to his aid, just like they had always done. He heard Arthur taking in short, pained breaths, and the marksman decided to do the only thing he had left.

Aramis gently pressed his hands down on his comrade's shoulders. And then, he prayed.

Next chapter might take a little bit longer, but I'll try to not keep you waiting for too long.
Stay safe everybody and take care!