Chapter 26 #2
He was so close. Higher, higher, and heavy footfalls greeted him before he could reach the top. Oste flicked his eyes up and saw a flash of silver from the barrel of a gun. The man behind it took aim just as Oste was poised to crest the top.
Know this, Dorotèa. Know that when I say I love you, which I again profess now, my confession is built upon every other honest truth that made me realize it.
I love you, Dorotèa, because I admire you and hold dear every sliver of your spirit and tenacity.
I love you, because I’m a better person to have known you.
I love you, because love requires joy, and you taught me the meaning of that.
Oste hooked his arm around the side of the ladder and lurched his weight to the left. He started to spin when he heard it, that awful sound.
Bang!
The air was so much hotter than it had been when muskets fired in wintertime. Smoke accompanied the burn, which embellished the cacophony of the shot.
Oste didn’t remember lunging after Tirel’s leg when he rotated to hide from the bullet that would inevitably come; but when he began to fall again, he didn’t let go.
The ladder exploded where the bullet passed through it, and the moistened wood crumpled under the weight of both men. When Oste went crashing back down to the earth, the captain came right with him, and they hit the stone with unceremonious thuds.
The musket went skidding across the floor, and though Oste couldn’t see where it ended up from his position, the subtle splash that accompanied its ending told him everything. It was the second lesson his father taught him about firing a gun, which succeeded the first:
Don’t point it at something you don’t intend to hit.
The musket had been pointed where it was meant to—Tirel was more than intentioned in shooting him—but the second lesson was thankfully broken. He heard it in his father’s voice:
Don’t get your gunpowder wet.
Everything hurt by that point, but not in the warm, sticky way that had come to haunt him.
He coughed when he hauled himself up to his feet, and saw quickly that Tirel was doing the same, but the captain bled from other places he’d been scored, and Oste knew this was as desperate a final push as any.
Their swords clashed together. Their strikes were slow and labored, neither willing to yield any ground.
That would only lead to death, now. One, two, three, four times they went back and forth.
Oste pushed the assault, but Tirel met it and danced to the side.
When the captain brought his blade up next, Oste couldn’t parry it entirely, and he felt a warm sting when his cheek was grazed.
One, two, and they locked blades. One pushed, and the other met it.
One tried to break the lock, and the other held it.
Tirel kicked out. Oste leapt back. The physician pierced forward somewhere, anywhere, and found his blade embedded in the top of the captain’s thigh.
The captain shuffled backwards, and then his own found its mark along the shallow layer of skin and fat along his opponent’s side.
Oste’s good doublet was ruined, but the injury didn’t hurt as much as it should have.
One, two, three. Every breath was strangled. Every blow was slow. Every second was a desperate appeal for a little more time upon the earth.
Their heavy blows met again. Oste was aware enough to know that he was frightened. He had been frightened the entire time. But still, he met each strike. Still, he let go to push an assault of his own.
Bang! Tirel stumbled, and his greaves striking the stone behind them with his full weight made for a deafening sound, not unlike the echo of a shot. Oste would never forget that sound for as long as he lived.
One. One, two. He was still afraid.
Bang! Oste’s assault sent Tirel’s sword flying to the side and into a hollow crate.
Still afraid, but still fighting, and thus did Oste drive his blade into the sinner’s neck.
“S'acò's pas vuei, sara deman,” he muttered, then withdrew his sword.
If not today, then tomorrow.
Dorotèa rubbed her palm against her temple.
Half her field of vision blurred and danced, but she still could not have missed the sight of her husband crossing the same distance to her that she’d risen to take herself.
She swayed, and he limped, but they still found each other in the center of the room.
The moment they held each other they collapsed to the floor. Neither surrendered a single semblance of detachment; from the moment the two met, they were swept up in each other’s arms in the dim, quiet damp.
“You’re bleeding,” Dorotèa uttered, but her voice shook as much as her body did. She buried her hands beneath his cloak to hide their incessant trembling.
Oste didn’t say anything in response, but his embrace—well, that was the cure to her shaking.
He wrapped himself around her expanse and held her tightly, possessively, like she’d vanish again at any moment, like she’d perish as the other girls did.
Dorotèa couldn’t tremble so much when his bulk overpowered hers, even as he bled in an easy rhythm like the steamy droplets that ran down the walls.
His blood was hot. When Dorotèa touched her fingers to his cut cheek, it warmed their tips.
She let him rock her there upon the slick, stony ground, and figured they’d not have an easy go of rising even if they wanted to.
His arms were safe. He fought for the both of them.
“Oste, you were…” Dorotèa tried. She kissed his neck and burrowed her head into him. “You were magnificent.”
“Magnificent,” he repeated in a whisper, which floated like the nearby steam directly into her ear. “Oh, ma chérie.”
They held fast. They swayed. Footsteps started to sound from a far off place.
“My heart,” Dorotèa shuddered. “My heart.”
So forth theirs beat in accordance to a song, where each carried softly in the repeated cadence of a line that contained naught but love me, love me, love me.