Duty Calls

Chapter 20

D’Artagnan’s POV

Buckingham is standing there, fear and despair written in his face. Two blades are right at his throat, one is in Milady’s hand and the other one is in Constance’s hand. They’re gonna kill him!

“Please, I swear they’re alive! D’Artagnan and Athos in there, fighting Jussac!” Buckingham pleads.

“We don’t have time for your lies!” Milady tells him bitterly.

No, no, no, no! I gotta stop them! Like right now!

“Wait! Stop it! Stop this madness!” I shout, running towards them. Hearing my voice, Constance turns around immediately. Her eyes widen, her mouth stays open with her forgetting to close it and she drops the sword.

“D’Artagnan?” She whispers.

Buckingham quickly takes a few steps back. Milady is still staring at me. I look her in the eyes.

“Athos is alive. We both made it out of the ship. This is all a trap. Jussac planned it.”

I can see new anger rising in her. She tightens the grip on her blade and storms towards the hall. Right, the others still haven’t followed behind me. This means the fight in there is still going on. Without any second thought, I grab the sword that Constance has dropped before.

“You two stay right here” I tell them.

“No, we’re both coming with you. Getting separated brought us into this mess!”

A part of me knows that she might be right, but I also don’t want her to get hurt. However, I definitely don’t have the time to argue with her right now. So I just turn around and run back into the hall. Porthos, Aramis and Julien are each fighting two men at a time. Athos is fighting Jussac and one other man. Julien is struggling in his fight. One of the men manages to slice his torso and I know that this is not only a slight gash. Julien falls to his knees. I cross the hall without hesitation in order to help him. I reach him just in time to block a blow that would have slit his throat. I use the moment of surprise to defeat both of the men quickly. I help Julien to get up again. The wound is undoubtedly painful, but not as severe as I’d feared. He presses his arm against the injury to stop the bleeding. I turn around to get a look at the current fights. Porthos and Aramis also got their fights finished. Milady defeated the guy Athos had been fighting aside from Jussac. Spoken one is unarmed, since Athos knocked his blade out of his grip.

Then many things happen at a time. Athos turns around to look at us. Jussac suddenly had a dagger. NO!

“ATHOS!”

Milady screams and reacts in a split second. She steps forward, going right between him and Jussac. We all watch in horror her eyes widen as the dagger is buried in her upper back. Athos spins around to her, wrapping her in his arms and slowly lowering her to the ground.
I get out of my shock and run to the two of them. I reach them at the same time as Constance. Tears are in her eyes and tears are running down Athos’ face. He loved her. He truly loves her with all his heart and I know that she’s been the only woman in his life. He cries over her, desperately whispering words.

“No, no, no! You don’t die! You can’t die! Please! Please, don’t leave me!”

There’s a thin line of blood that poured out of her mouth. Constance has grabbed her hand and is sobbing bitterly.

“P-please, d-d-don’t d-die o-on m-me.”

Milady’s eyes are already halfway closed, but she whispers barely audible:

“Don’t cry. It’s okay, you don’t need me. What did I teach you?”

“Y-you taught me t-to be strong.”

Suddenly I see a movement out of the corner of my eye. I spin around immediately, my sword ready for action. Jussac got out another dagger and is about to kill Buckingham. I react in a millisecond, stepping forward and shoving my blade through his chest. He drops to the ground immediately, staying there unmoving.
He’s dead.