, melting, Chapter 4
Aramis woke with a sharp pain shooting through his leg that was so intense it momentarily blocked out all the other complaints being registered by other body parts. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he quickly identified what the issue was when a tree branch, protruding from his thigh floated into view. Already, the material of his pants around the wound was red with blood and the medic prayed the stick hadn't punctured his femoral artery.
Struggling to a fully seated position without jarring his leg wasn't easy, but he managed to do it. From his new height, he was able to see the area around him. The canvas of the canopy was flapping wildly in the roaring winds, trapped in the trees surrounding him. Cherry-sized balls of ice lay scattered on the grass about him, melting, and he deduced it must have hailed during the brief time he'd been unconscious. With a low groan, he wasn't able to stifle, he rotated his torso so he could see further about him. He had no clue where Athos was, but considering the ride both men had shared and the abrupt halt, he doubted the stoic musketeer was any better off. The rains, which had picked up in intensity, were not helping his visual search. Twice he called out his brother's name, but the wind tore the sounds from his cracked lips and scattered them. There was no sign of the palace leading Aramis to believe their journey had taken them away from the building and any sort of outside aid.
Scanning about again, Aramis let his eyes raise to the horizon and suddenly his blood ran cold and his breath hitched in his throat. A dark, twisty mass appeared in the sky. A tornado. The marksman had never seen one before, but he had heard tales of them and the destruction they wrought. Suddenly, time was of the essence. He had to find Athos and get them to shelter.
Ripping the blue sash from about his waist, he made a make-shift tourniquet on his thigh above the entry point of the branch. Twisting it tight, he prayed it would hold for it might be the only thing between him and death. Flicking the sodden curls out of his eyes, he forced himself to study the stick protruding from his upper thigh. If his judgment was correct, it probably had about three inches of its length embedded in his tender flesh. Gritting his teeth and knowing what he had to do, he firmly grasped the wooden stake and pulled it out. His howl of pain was lost in the howling of the wind. The freed branch fell woodenly from his fingers as he panted and tried not to allow the dark dots circling in front of his eyes from becoming a curtain and pulling him under.
Shaking his head slightly, which was definitely a mistake, he pushed back the pain and wound another piece of his sash over the freely bleeding wound. He was happy to note that the pressure of the cloth seemed to slow the bleeding. As he took a deep breath of relief, another injury made itself known as his ribs throbbed. Bruised or cracked he hoped, not broken, though only time and a proper examination would tell.
Lightening ripped through the skies and the winds grew ever more intense as the skies began to be cast in an eerie green light. Realizing there was no time to lose, Aramis gritted his teeth and shakily climbed to his feet, stumbling and leaning heavily on a nearby tree to stay upright. He cast his eyes about him again, with no luck in finding his missing friend.
"Please God, where is he?" Aramis prayed reverently to his Maker. And his prayers were answered, though not necessarily in the manner he expected.
The skies darkened, the wind roared through the trees, and hail began to pound the earth once again. Flashes of lightening lit the skies and it was in this visual spectacle that he finally spotted Athos. The musketeer must have been caught up in the branches above Aramis' head for suddenly, the swordsman's body plunged to the Earth from what appeared to be the heavens. The body hit the ground with a sickening thud, and Aramis' heart dropped to his knees in fright. Athos' right shoulder caught on the edge of a large tree branch and the medic could practically hear it being ripped from its socket
"Athos!," Aramis screamed above the winds, but the body on the ground lay motionless.
Without heed for his own injures, Aramis scrambled over to his fallen brother's side. Athos was lying on his right-side in the dirt, eyes shut, his lashes dark against his pale cheeks and a thin trickle of blood escaping from the corner of his mouth. Gently, Aramis rolled the unconscious man unto his back, which, unexpectedly cause the green eyes to flutter open, close, then open wide as a scream was ripped from the wounded man's throat.
Aramis' quickly clasped his brother's hand. "It is alright, mon ami. You are hurt, but I am here."
The medic musketeer wasn't sure if Athos was even registering his presence as the lieutenant fought through his pain, struggling to sit up. Knowing from past history that trying to get Athos to lie still was more detrimental than helpful, Aramis carefully helped the swordsman to sit. Instinctively, Athos' left hand reached over and cradled the elbow of his right arm.
"You have wrenched your shoulder out of its socket, Athos."
Finally, the green eyes stopped darting about and focused on Aramis, who smiled to try to reassure the other. The hint of a smile of relief pulled at the bloodstained left corner of Athos' mouth, until his left forearm, accidently pressed against the his ribs. Athos reeled in pain, turned his head and vomited. Tears streamed from his eyes as the violent motion aggravated every injury on his body. Fortunately, he passed out again and Aramis made sure to adjust Athos' head so he wouldn't choke on his own vomit.
Raising his eyes to the horizon, Aramis realized they had little time left to seek shelter from the approaching tornado. With an apology, he grasped Athos' bad shoulder. The pain of his touch forced his brother awake once more. Green eyes sought out his in desperation, not understanding how the man that professed to be his brother could treat him in such a manner.
"I'm sorry, Athos. But we need to move. Now. And I can't do it without your help."
Comprehension swept through his green eyes as Athos noted Aramis, too, was injured. As he went to nod to indicate he understood, the edges of his eyesight dimmed once more and his head throbbed so badly that he thought his brain would explode. Unconsciously reaching up a hand to his head, he touched a wet mass under the edge of his hair. His fingers came back tinged with red, which the rain quickly washed away.
"Let me see," Aramis demanded, leaning forward, but Athos raised a hand to block him.
"It will keep. We need to move. Can you stand?" the swordsman queried, not so sure how he would answer the same question asked of him.
"Yes. Barely." As if to prove his statement true, Aramis lurched to his feet, though he did lean heavily on the tree next to him. Reaching down, he grabbed Athos' left hand and helped haul the injured musketeer upwards.
Athos made it to his feet, barely, and it was a shaky few seconds whether he would pass out. However, as his eyes rose to the horizon and saw the twisting mass, which seemed like it was heading directly at them, he suddenly got an adrenaline surge which kept him conscious. Thinking back to anything he'd ever read on tornados, he knew their best hope for survival was underground. But there didn't seem to be anything in their immediate surroundings and he doubted either of them, wounded, was going to make it far.
It took a moment for him to figure out they were at the far ends of the palace grounds, in the grove of trees near the Seine. Where could they seek shelter? Underground. Near the river?
"The ice house!" he shouted at Aramis.
Catherine de Medici had a fondness for ice cream and an ice house was built near the Seine to store frozen blocks of ice to be used during the course of the year. In order for it not to melt, the storage facility had been dug deep into the Earth where it was cooler and away from the melting rays of the sun. Now, if they could only locate and reach it before the winds swept them away.
Using each other for support, the two musketeers made their way through the woods in what they hoped was the direction of the river. One didn't get to be a musketeer with a bad sense of direction and they soon broke the tree line and spotted the Seine. It took a few minutes in the storm, using the lightning flashes for beacons, to determine where they were in relationship to the ice house; luckily, they were not far away.
Stumbling across the open ground between the forest and the ice cave, the wind swept the two musketeers' off their feet and tumbled them like litter across the grass. Athos screamed with pain as his displaced shoulder slammed into the dirt and he was rolled like a child's ball across the grass. Aramis' wounded leg felt no better as he too was tossed about.
When the wind let up for a few minutes, the two men dragged themselves to their knees and crawled the last few yards to the ice house. Athos slumped over on his left side, knowing he didn't have the strength to wrench open the door to the underground structure. He prayed Aramis did.
Aramis forced his abused body to its knees and then stood. Bracing against the wind that was trying to sweep him away, he reached down and grasped the rusty iron ring on the wooden door and heaved with all his might. The hinges creaked as the door slowly rose, but the noise was overshadowed by the winds' shrieks. The door got about half-way open and then it slowly came to a halt. Despite all Aramis' efforts, he could not get it open any further.
Aramis motioned with his head for Athos to crawl through the opening, but the swordsman knew that Aramis would not be able to get through himself unless the door was fully open. Athos forced his body over to the door, half walking, half crawling. When he got to the partially open door, he pitched himself forward, into the wooden planks, forcing the door the rest of the way open until it lay against the dirt. Had he been thinking a bit more clearly, he would have warned Aramis to let go of the door because the marksman was also flung to the dirt by the maneuver.
The action also overbalanced Athos, who staggered and fell down the stairs into the icy cavern below. Somehow, the twisting and jarring of hitting step after step caused his right shoulder to be forcibly jerked back into its socket, though the accompanying pain was so great, that Athos slide across the dirt floor and into the blocks of ice where he lay, unconscious.
Aramis rolled on his back and saw the tail of the twister nearly upon him. Scrambling to his knees, he grabbed the handle of the door on the inside, and jerked it closed using his full body weight. He tumbled backwards down the stairs and found himself on the ground near his unresponsive brother. Flashes of lightning worked their ways through the cracks in the wooden door as the twister tried to grasp the door with its coiled fingers and pry it open. Though the door flapped open a few heart-terrifying times, it always shut once more. Aramis sat there, in the darkness between the flashes, praying like he'd never done before, asking for their deliverance from this devil-spawned storm.
While in reality it didn't take long for the twister to pass by, to Aramis it seemed like eternity. Finally, the hail stopped pounding on the wooden doors, the lightning ceased and the winds dropped off to a gentle breeze. Aramis crossed himself in the dark as he ended his prayer vigil.
Remembering from when he and the other musketeers had been called upon to help stock the icehouse, he carefully climbed to his feet and felt his way over to a shelf where he recalled candles had been stored. Finding and lighting one, he placed it on the ground at the base of the stairs before he painfully made his way up them towards the closed door.
When he reached the top, he pressed on the panels, but they remained stubbornly closed, and it didn't take long for him to figure out something on the outside was keeping them shut. Given the winds, it was probably a downed tree.
Making his way back to where Athos lay unmoving, he lit a second candle he had secured, placed the two candles on the ground near the injured man and began his examination. He was amazed when he discovered the tumble down the stairs had corrected the shoulder displacement, though he hoped his brother had been unconscious by that point for surely it had to have caused tremendous pain. Unbuttoning the black leather jacket, he felt down Athos' ribcage, coming to the conclusion none were broken to the point of being a danger to the lungs. The bloody knot on the back of the head surely indicated a concussion, but as Athos had been awake and lucid, he was not overly worried. The fun part would come later when the swordsman was forced to remain inactive to allow the concussion to heal. Athos was never a good patient.
Moving the candles, he examined his own wounds and was pleased to see the puncture wound on the leg, for all the movement it had undergone, was barely seeping, indicting the artery must have been spared. Both he and Athos would be scratched, battered and bruised, but they would survive this ordeal. Well, assuming they found a way out of this ice house. But for the moment, they were safe.