CHAPTER 6

D'Artagnan pulled up, realizing he no longer heard any sounds of his companions, nor, if he thought about it, had he for a while. Turning his horse around, he scanned behind him in the dim moonlight. Odd he couldn't see anyone, he thought as he urged his mare back down the road from whence he had come.

Porthos kept pushing Flip as quickly as he dared, trying to catch sight of his friends. He'd only stopped for a minute to pee. How had they gotten so far ahead so quickly on such a slick road? Hoof beats were coming towards him. Was he that far behind that they were coming to look for him? Athos wasn't going to be happy with him when he arrived.

Peering into the distance, he was surprised to see d'Artagnan, not Athos heading towards him. Great, even worse. Athos sent the pup back to find him.

"Porthos?" D'Artagnan asked, sounding unsure and confused.

"Athos sent you back to find me? How mad is he? I swear I only stopped for a minute to pee," Porthos rushed to explain, for some reason feeling he was at fault.

"Athos? I haven't seen Athos. Or Aramis either. Just you."

"That can't be right. They was between us. How could you have not passed them?" Porthos questioned as he began to scan around him.

"Are you sure you didn't pass them?" d'Artagnan asked, even though he knew it was a stupid question.

Porthos snorted and shook his head. "Think I'd know if I passed two horses with musketeers on them. I don't like this d'Artagnan. Something's wrong."

'"Well, if you didn't pass them, then there has to be some sign of where they went between where I turned around and here."

D'Artagnan turned his mount around and they slowly walked their horses, scanning the land around them for clues.

"Here!" the Gascon called out excitedly as he saw trampled snow and skid marks that lead over the edge of the embankment. Standing in his stirrups, he craned his neck to scan the area down below near the river. He wasn't sure in the feeble light, but he thought he saw a horse. "I think there is a horse down there." Kicking free of his stirrups, he slid to the ground then dropped the reins of his horse, commanding Zad to wait.

Porthos joined him and the two men slid down the slope towards the horse. "Looks like we ain't the only ones who slid down here tonight." He pointed to the indentations in the snow.

D'Artagnan, who was now alongside the still horse said, "Its him. The gelding Athos was riding."

As the streetfighter headed over that way, his foot hit something metallic. Reaching down, he caught a flash of silver as his hands wrapped around the object. Raising it to examine it, he sharply inhaled. "This is Athos' sword. I'd recognize it anywhere."

"What happened here? Could they have been ambushed?" d'Artagnan wondered aloud as he scanned the area for more clues.

Porthos followed the marks in the snow to the river's edge. Turning he looked back up the slope and then down to the river. "I hate to say it, but I think they fell in the river. Looks like large objects slid down this slope and the marks go all the way into the Seine."

D'Artagnan, who'd been prowling around stopped, reached down and picked up an object. "Aramis' weapons belt." He turned it over in his hand a few times as he was thinking. "You found Athos' sword near the road; Aramis' belt down here. Their horses didn't have snowshoes on. What if the horses slipped on the ice and slid over the embankment? I could see Athos throwing his sword aside, if he had time, so as not to fall with it on and get hurt. If Aramis' mount went quicker, maybe he didn't have time to get this off until he was further down the slope."

They moved over to the edge of the river and studied the snowy ground as best as they could, given the dim lighting. The edges of the river's bank were smoothed over, as if something heavy and large had slid over into the icy water.

Eyeing the angry river, Porthos gravely said, "If they tumbled into that..." His voice got choked with emotion.

D'Artagnan reached over and clamped his hand on the streetfighter's muscular arm. "This is Athos and Aramis. They'll survive. We'll find them downstream somewhere, Athos drinking a keg of brandy and Aramis in the arms of a woman."

He got Porthos to smile even though they both knew the outcome of this was far from certain.

Cold killed.

Growing up in the Court of Miracles, each winter, when the streets of Paris grew bitterly cold, people froze to death. Porthos had the unfortunate experience of finding one of his friends who died from hyperthermia. Renault. Renny, they called him. Porthos had asked the boy to stay with him and a few friends because the nights had been bitter and they all piled together like a pack of puppies under the thin blankets they had stolen. But Renny, with his one eye that looked straight ahead and the other that wandered, was often picked on by the other children. Porthos never made fun of him, but others did and he wasn't fond of being in larger groups. Assuring his friend he had a safe, warm place to sleep, Renny had left that night on his own. Porthos didn't think about him again until later the next day, when he heard the gossip that another child had frozen overnight. The peculiar one they called him. With a sinking feeling, Porthos went to where the dead bodies were placed in the Court until they could be disposed of, and there he found Renny.

To this day, he still remembered what the corpse looked like. Pale, blue-white and strangely peaceful, as if he had just drifted off to sleep. He shook off his reverie. That was not going to happen to Athos and Aramis, he vowed. "Let's go. We have to search for them."

"How? It's too dark to see the river from the road above, especially the opposite bank, and there is no way we will be able to walk along the icy, snowy edge of the water, not with the horses," D'Artagnan declared in frustration. He wasn't stupid. Even if they had escaped the river, the cold could quickly kill them if they didn't find shelter and warmth. Time was critical and not on their side.

"And there is the problem of the letter. Treville said it had to be there by tomorrow," Porthos said as he walked over to where the horse Athos had been riding was standing. Instead of putting the packet in the pocket of his coat, as he usually did, Athos had tucked it into his saddle bags. Reaching into the right-hand pack, Porthos withdrew the object they were to deliver.

Both men stared at it, knowing what it meant, but neither one wanting to make the call. Finally, being the senior of the two, Porthos spoke the cold hard truth. "We have to continue with the mission. You know it's right. What Athos would expect of us." With that, he tucked the letter inside his own coat.

"He'd want us to leave him and Aramis to die?" d'Artagnan asked bitterly as he watched Porthos tuck the letter away.

Reaching over, Porthos placed a gentle hand on the lad's shoulder. "Athos would want us to do our duty. Complete the mission. And then come rescue them."

"If it is not too late," d'Artagnan cried, turning away from Porthos to face the river, not wanting the musketeer to see the tears that he was trying to hold back. "What about the horse?" he asked when he finally regained some of his composure. He turned and ran a hand over the gelding's neck.

"I guess we could try to get him back up the slope," Porthos said, though his tone indicated he was dubious of this working.

The ex-farmer gauged the slope in its snowy condition and shook his head. "Unlikely he will be able to make it."

"We can't just leave him standin' here all geared up."

Glancing back at the gelding, d'Artagnan ran a practiced eye over the horse. "He doesn't seem to have any major injuries. Let's untack him and leave him. I think he will be able to survive. The river will provide water and there is probably some forage under the snow."

Porthos walked over and started to undo the girth. "Guess it's the best we can do for him. We'll let them know when we get back to the garrison, where he is. Someone will be able to get him out of here."

It didn't take long to untack the horse, who, after he was unencumbered, simply stood there, watching them. Slinging Athos' saddle over his shoulder, Porthos handed the saddlebags and bridle to d'Artagnan. Then the two began trudging up the snowy slope. Both men slipped and fell a number of times trying to navigate the incline, and by the time they got to the top both musketeers were weary and sore. Porthos draped Athos' saddle over a fallen tree a little way off the road, hoping it would still be there when someone came to fetch it. D'Artagnan flung Athos' saddlebags over the back of his own mare and shoved the bridle into one of the packs.

Silently, they mounted and took one last look at the river below. Then, without a word, they turned and continued on to the Abbey, though their hearts were heavy with sorrow, for they couldn't help thinking they might be condemning their brothers to certain death.