Porthos looked round fervently as he and D'Artagnan jumped over a dead trunk of a tree on the forest floor; his wrist throbbed and stung as the tight metal of the handcuff dug into his skin.
'Stop, stop a minute...' he muttered, breathing heavily as he flung out a hand to stop the Gascon.
'Why?' D'Artagnan replied with wide eyes. 'We need to keep going, we need to-'
'Assess our situation is what we need to do!' Porthos snapped, before softening and looking round, eyes scanning the almost pitch-black forest; all they had for light was the full moon floating above their heads, which meant it occasionally was blocked out by the high canopy of trees.
They could only hear silence, which Porthos did not know whether to take as a good or bad sign. Did that mean they were being stalked, like common game, or that they had already lost their tormentors? He hoped it was the latter. Looking around he could see that they were already deep into the forest, and he knew forests in these parts of the country could go on for miles without civilisation.
Where was the nearest town? Where was the nearest road? He just didn't know. All they could do was keep low and keep moving forwards.
'We need to find a town, or even just a house...' he whispered, before he and the younger man ducked back into the thick forest and continued their running into the darkness.
'How's your finger?' he whispered to him as they tried not to break any twigs or branch as they clambered over a muddy bank and into a copse of thick trees.
'Sore, but it's not my finger I'm worried about...' the Gascon replied, nodding his head down to his shoulder- Porthos could see the white bandage that protected his gun shot wound was now dark crimson and flecked with mud. 'We need to look at that,' he whispered, before looking into d'artagnan's face as the moon made another appearance through the trees- his face was shining with sweat and white as a sheet.
'Later, we need to g-' The Gascon stopped mid-sentence as they heard a shout from behind them, followed by the sound of a blade being unsheathed; the sound made the hairs on Porthos' head stand on end. He flung out a hand and pushed D'Artagnan against the tree they were standing in front of before doing the same; the handcuffs made it much harder to manoeuvre their bodies as they were tethered together; he could feel blood slipping down the back of his hand as the metal cut against his skin again.
'Shh...' he whispered, eyes wide as he scanned the dark horizon of the forest.
D'Artagnan swallowed and tried to quell the panic in his chest as he turned his head to the left. His heart leapt as he saw a small ball of orange, flickering light in the distance; a lantern.
'We have to move!' he muttered urgently; the light was heading straight for them, and it wouldn't be long before they would be seen. 'The other side of the tree...' he added- together they managed to move themselves around the large tree trunk until they were out of sight.
Both men held their breaths as they heard the crackling of branches and bracken on the forest floor being snapped underfoot- each sound made D'Artagnan more and more nervous; every noise made his nerves fire in fear and anticipation.
Silence now. They had stopped. Probably looking around, Porthos wagered. He hoped they weren't one of those hunters that could tell the scent of something just by sniffing the breeze. Neither of them smelt particularly fragrant after their days in captivity, after all.
The seconds trickled by painfully as still there was silence- D'Artagnan wondered whether they had merely not heard the man walk away; surely they should have moved by now?
He could feel Porthos was tense and ready behind him- he desperately wanted to move a little and see where the man was, but knew the sound of the handcuff tinkling would bring the man straight to them if they had not moved away.
An owl hooted overhead and the moon ducked back into the trees above, casting the forest below into darkness; Porthos withheld the sudden intense urge to sneeze and chanced a look around the three trunk- with a sudden yell in surprise he threw himself backward as an axe embedded itself into the wood where his head had just been.
The force of Porthos moving caused D'Artagnan to lose balance, and as a result both men fell heavily onto the forest floor as they heard manically laughter from above them.
'I FOUND 'EM!' the man screeched with a horrible, excited laugh- D'Artagnan could see he was a man in his mid-fifties, with greying hair and a small, wiry body. He laughed again as he raised his axe for a killing blow; as the blade fell Porthos only just managed to move himself out of the way; he heard D'Artagnan cry out in pain as he was forced to lean heavily onto his shoulder as he go out of the way of the blade- both men scrabbled to the left again as the man wrenched the axe from the muddy ground and prepared for another blow. With an angry cry Porthos heaved himself upwards and flew forwards, catching the man around the middle, pushing him off his feet and onto the hard ground.
d'artagnan's arm was nearly pulled out of his socket as he too was wrenched forwards alongside Porthos and he had to slam his other hand onto the ground to stop himself from toppling over again; his broken finger hit the floor and burst into an agonising cloud of pain, but he pushed it to the back of his mind as he desperately looked round for any kind of weapon to protect Porthos, who was now grappling with the man.
The man with the axe gasped as the air was pushed out of him but was soon back in fighting form- he launched forwards and headbutted Porthos- the bigger man cried out in pain and retaliated by punching him in the jaw before he looked round in panic- He knew they still had to be quiet; there were many more men in these woods, and didn't really fancy drawing them all over to them. The other man got his arm free and punched Porthos in the mouth twice in quick succession before Porthos managed to get a hold of it and try and hold it back.
The man kicked out as he tried to throw Porthos off him; his arms scratched his forearms and hands as Porthos applied more pressure to his chest to keep him down; another punch to his face from the musketeer and the man's head finally sank to the floor, gasping and coughing wetly as blood flowed from his nose and into his mouth.
'Y-you going to kill me?' he gurgled, his eye already bruising and swelling as Porthos sat up, breathing heavily. D'Artagnan scrambled to Porthos' side as the two of them grappled with their consciences.
'Musketeers don't kill people!' the man added with a wet laugh.
Porthos didn't know what to do- for one, the bastard was right; it wasn't their job to kill people. Deep down he wanted these men to answer for their crimes here; he wanted them to pay for what they had done.
But then...did this man deserve life, when he was more than willing to take it away from wholly innocent people? How many others had suffered at his hands? Twenty, thirty, more? How many more would suffer?
'That's what I thought...' he muttered, before in a split second he took the Musketeers's moment of deliberation to reach into his pocket and pull out a small gun; D'artagnan immediately grabbed the man's hand to pull the gun away from Porthos. The two men struggled as Porthos moved off the man to try and help the younger Gascon.
Suddenly there was a deafening bang and a blinding flash of light- the man went rigid under D'artagnan's arms and his hands went limp, before they hit the forest floor.
The man's eyes rolled backwards until they faced the forest floor; moonlight illuminated the scene as the musketeer's sat back, breathing heavily. A pool of blood was slowly flowling from a wound in the man's chest. The gun fell from D'artagnan's hand onto the floor as the young man stared into the dead face of their hunter.
'We have to go.' Porthos growled as he slowly stood up, gently pulling D'artagnan to his feet too. 'They would have heard that and will come running...' he added, before bending downand picking up the man's gun. 'I'll keep this...' he muttered, pocketing it as he looked around.
'Come on, we've got to get out of here!' he said again. The Gascon nodded, swallowing.
'I killed him,' he muttered as they ran back into the undergrowth and through the forest once more.
'It was kill or be killed, kid,' Porthos corrected. 'You saved my life back there- I'm proud of you,' he added with a smile. 'Now shh, we gotta get as far from here as possible and maybe find a house...I need to take a look at your shoulder.' He instructed.
They both couldn't help but stop dead as they heard another succession of gunshots, followed by shouts and jeers from somewhere in the distance to their right.
'Aramis...' Porthos whispered in dread, panic once again hitting the pit of his stomach. 'Athos.'
The two men looked at each other before they ducked back into the forest, blending into the darkness of the forest as they picked their way through the undergrowth.
'Should we go and find them?' D'artagnan said in a hushed tone- his shoulder flourished in pain again and he felt fresh blood soak his bandage, but all he could think about was their friends.
'We need to find help first and sort you out,' Porthos replied, hating himself for every word-he wanted nothing more than to rush in and save his brothers, but he knew they had to find help if they could, otherwise d'Artagnan would probably not survive another ambush.
Athos and Aramis was capable fighters, of that he had no doubt, and he knew that if they could find help, or even a decent weapon to defend themselves, then they all would stand a much better chance. One bullet would not be enough to save them, he knew- once they had this then they would go back and help their friends. They themselves were also not out of danger; he looked round as he scanned the forest again for more men; they had to do something to even the odds of them making it out of the night alive.
He tried to push the thought of his brothers in peril into the back of his mind as they ran deeper into the forest, and into the unknown of the dark forest.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter!
I'm going to be doing alternating chapters for each twosome until their stories link up again, so the next chapter will be Athos and Aramis. I will also be going back and exploring the bad guys, so there is still a lot to come ^^ Oh, and more whump to come, too! :)
Thanks for reading, please review!
Happyday girl x