Time Rider Ch. 04

He turned a corner and then headed up some stairs, leading up to the next floor, which was apparently where Becky was being kept. He was so busy thinking about what he needed to do next that he blundered right into two guards, who grunted and then glared at him angrily.

"Stupid shit!" the one man he had smacked into spat. "Watch where you are- who are you?"

Mark went wide-eyed, not having expected them. His mouth seemed to work, but no sounds came forth. They blocked his ascent and continued to glare at him.

"Who... are... you?" the man demanded again.

Mark regained control of his voice and tried to speak. "My name is... my name is Benat..."

Fuck, he'd forgotten his last name.

"My name is Benat DeFlepard," he managed to say. "I am from Sully and I have-"

"What sort of name is DeFlepard?" snarled the one guard.

"I have sealed orders," Mark interrupted, not liking where this was going. "From the Cardinal!"

"Is that so?" sneered the man. "Let's see them!"

Mark handed him the sealed missive scroll. The man examined it and frowned.

"This is the king's seal," he growled. "What is the meaning of thi-"

Before the man could finish his query, Mark punched him in the face and then pulled his crème-coloured tabard over his head and threw him down the stairs. The guard cursed loudly as he rolled at least two floors.

Mark was too late to stop the other man from drawing his short rapier, but managed to grapple onto him, keeping himself from being run through. Mark might have been taller, but the guard was a veteran of many wars, strong and cunning. It wasn't long before he had Mark's back pressed against the wall, both men fighting for balance on the stairs.

"Little shit!" he shouted, trying to press the edge of his blade against Mark's throat and slit it. They tussled, and Mark managed to wedge his arm between his neck and the rapier, feeling the sickening cold pain of the keen edge creasing his forearm. His free hand, however, snaked down to the pistol on his belt, twisting the leather until the muzzle pointed down...

The stairwell echoed with a thunderous crack as Mark pulled the trigger and discharged the weapon, the iron ball punching a hole in the guard's boot and then his foot. The man groaned and staggered, releasing Mark. His ears ringing, Mark managed to shove the man down the stairs, following his comrade. He shook his head and began sprinting up the stairs, knowing the whole palace would be coming down on his head any second now.

***

Alexandra was concealed in a secret closet in a parlour not far from the queen's quarters, listening carefully. She was wearing the red uniform of the Cardinal's personal guard, her impressive bust flattened and pulled tight with linen straps. Her golden hair was held in a ponytail while a black mask concealed her facial features. Her rapier sat on her hip and three customized pistols were concealed around her person, along with several knives balanced for throwing.

She heard the discharge of a firearm, followed by shouts of alarm and fright. She hung her head and sighed. She'd been hoping it wouldn't come to this, but there seemed to be nothing for it. She would see her obligation met.

Alexandra crossed herself and exited the hidden space, heading toward the Cardinal's quarters, determined to cause a distraction for Mark as he went in the opposite direction to rescue Rebecca. It was all in God's hands now.

All she could hope was that Mark had remembered what his name was.

***

Mark raced down the hallway, ignoring people who poked their heads out of various rooms and parlours to see what all the commotion was, before closing their doors and locking them in panic at the sight of him. He had his sword in one hand, his pistol in the other. Having discharged his shot already and having no idea how to readily and safely reload the damn thing, the pistol was mostly for intimidation purposes at this point. Thankfully, if he pointed it at people, they tended to make themselves scarce.

A guard rushed around the corner, his halberd in hand, but Mark smashed the ornate swept hilt of his rapier into his mouth, which dissolved in a welter of blood, lips and gum before he burbled and fell over. Mark kept running.

He shoulder-blocked his way past another guard, but then found himself confronted by a small group of angry servant girls, who kept swearing in French and throwing bread rolls and potatoes at him. Covering his head, he sprinted past them, resisting the urge to take a swipe at the uppity wenches.

There was the room!

He raced up to it and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Given the amount of noise and commotion he was causing, he shouldn't have been surprised. He stepped back and then slammed the heel of his sturdy boot into the door with all his might, knocking it out of its frame and falling to the floor. He rushed inside, looking around for his teacher, but she was nowhere in sight.

That's when the heavy vase smashed into the back of his head.

He was on his face on the floor, reality swimming around him. He heard someone hissing at him as he was handled roughly by his neck and his tunic. He was turned onto his back and someone was straddling him now, their supple legs on either side of his throat and their heavy skirt bunched up between their legs, allowing him to goggle up at his assaulter.

"Becky! Stop! Stop, I- OW! JESUS! QUIT HITTING ME! IT'S ME, MARK!!"

The flurry of fists halted and then there was a pause thick with confusion. He felt his cheeks being gripped tightly, immobilizing his face and then his neck pulled up so that whoever was sitting on him could look at him.

"Mark?" Becky exclaimed in disbelief. "Mark! Oh my God!"

She began smothering him with feverish kisses, still straddling him. Still dizzy, he was in no particular shape to stop her, in spite of the fact the whole palace was on its way to kill him. His eyes finally managed to focus, and he looked up at her.

"I've missed you too, Becks, but can you let me up, please?"

Becky blinked and then jumped off him hastily, helping him to his feet. She still seemed stunned to see him, not that he blamed her.

"How?" she asked, her eyes wide with disbelief and wet with emotion. "You- you were."

"Dead? Yeah, kinda."

"The how are you here?" she asked, trembling.

He shrugged. "To quote Neil De Grasse-Tyson, science, bitches."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she exhaled, crushing herself to him and hugging tight, her body shaking with raw emotion. "You're back, Mark. You came back for me..."

He smiled and hugged her back, his hand on the back of her head. "Well sure I did. You're my time-travelling partner, aren't you? Can't leave you here with these smelly savages."

She laugh-choked back a sob and look up at him, her eyes leaking tears onto her scarlet cheeks.

"And we're gonna get out of here and- Becks, are you, like, really drunk?"

Her expression of delight warped into a scowl at his query and she pushed herself away from him. "Well what do you expect? I only spent the past month trying to kill myself with alcohol while you were taking your unscheduled nap, you jerk!"

"I'm sorry," he faltered, knowing that this couldn't possibly be the right time to make her angry, on so many levels. "Let me get you out of here and then I'll explain everything."

"Hang on..." she huffed, stomping over to a table and grabbing her bottle of wine, tilting her head back and taking a stiff pull from it gulping loudly. Mark make a wan face and fidgeted, acutely aware of the time they were losing.

"Becks, no offense, but I'm pretty sure every guard in Paris is looking for me right now, and I-"

"Sounds like more of a you problem than a me problem," she grunted, attempting to drain the bottle with several loud glucks. "Nobody was trying to kill me while I was here."

"No, you seem to have that covered..." he said dryly. She shot him a nasty look, but didn't stop drinking.

"Look, we need to go," he insisted. "Pretty sure Alexandra's risking her neck to make sure I can-"

"Alexandra?" Becky interrupted, stopping drinking to look at him pointedly. "The gorgeous blonde I want to fuck?"

"I... sure," Mark replied, trying to keep up. "Pretty sure she and Lisette are-"

"Who's Lisette?" Becky asked suspiciously, lurching toward him. She was quite a bit drunker than he'd initially thought.

"It doesn't matter," he declared, determined to get moving before Richelieu arrested and shot his ass again. "We need to get-"

Mark winced in fear as she surged toward him, the bottle raised over her head. She flew by him and smashed the bottle down on the head of a guard who had barged into the room. His eyes rolled up into his head and he went to sleep.

"Weren't you drunk moments ago?" Mark asked in disbelief.

"Looks like you're the one who need rescuing." Becky shot back. "You were half a second away from having an exit wound the size of an airport runway in your chest just now."

Another guard sprang around the corner. Becky, who was closest to the door, kicked him savagely between the legs. The man staggered to a stop and stiffened, but didn't fall over, the impact of her foot cushioned by the many layers of baroque skirt she was wearing, not to mention the dainty, padded slipper. As the man gaped at her, she kicked him between the legs again, but her skirt interfered, softening the blow to the place where he merely doubled over from the ache.

Becky snarled angrily, lunged in, grabbed him by the neck and DDT'd him. This time he stayed down.

"Jerk!" she muttered, glaring at the man. Without a second thought, she used a knife on the man's belt to tear layers of skirt away, leaving herself clad only in the bodice and skimpy underwear, with garters holding up the silk stockings she wore. She knelt on the unconscious man's back and pulled his boots off, replacing her slippers with the sturdier footwear. She then stripped his rapier and pistol from his person before turning to look at Mark.

"You ready now?" she asked pointedly, standing there in what basically amounted to negligee and musketeer boots, while holding a rapier and a wheellock pistol. He gaped at her for a moment, unable to say anything.

"You have no idea how stupidly sexy you look right now, Becks." Mark managed to say.

"I'll believe it when Alexandra says it to me," she sniffed, turning and heading out the door. "Let's go, hero." Mark sighed and trotted after her, leaving the two men lying on the floor in a spreading pool of wine and broken shards of glass.

***

Lisette made sure the guard was arranged comfortably in the plush chair, snoring, his breeches still around his ankles, his soft cock oozing cum all over his balls. She shook her head in exasperation as she rearranged her skirts- no sooner had the man cum than he yawned and began to fall asleep. She'd been nowhere close to climaxing when he'd finished. Typical male.

At least the boy from the future liked to make sure she came first, even if he was a dolt.

She left the door open, to make sure his shame was on display and then hurried down the hallway, holding her skirt up and allowing herself to run. The palace was ringing with shouts of alarm, anger and panic. Everything seemed to be going as planned, whatever that entailed. She just trusted that Mistress knew what she was doing.

Guards from various regiments were racing around now, getting one another's way and shouting orders angrily. She passed through them virtually unnoticed, merely a servant girl looking for shelter. She made a beeline right for the queen's royal apartments, and she was stopped by no one, since she was known to the guards and stuff. She nodded hastily as she passed two guards outside the ornate doors and headed inside the boudoir.

Anne of Austria looked up from a book to see Lisette scurry in, closing the door behind herself and then pressing her ear to the door, ignoring everyone else in the room. She then saw the queen, blinked, curtseyed hastily, and went back to eavesdropping on the frenzy of activity outside.

The monarch shook her head wearily and went back to reading her book.

***

"You may not pass through here!" shouted the house guard, blocking Alexandra's passage forward. She had identified herself as a member of the Cardinal's guard, using her well-practiced man's voice to give credit to her guise. Thought he believed her, the man remained unmoved, barring her way.

"I told you, I need to reach the Cardinal!" she insisted, knowing full well he would not let her through.

"That is no concern of mine," he said coldly, glaring at her, his hand on his sword, ready to draw it. "Find another way to reach your Cardinal, because if you come another step closer, I will run you through."

"So be it!" she growled as she lunged in, her own rapier flashing in her hand. The man drew his weapon and thrust at her, but she parried and then drove the point of her blade through the shoulder of his sword arm, pinning him against the wall. He groaned as his sword fell to the ground, but then her foot slammed into his face while she pulled her rapier from his shoulder. He was unconscious, but he would live. She had no cause to kill these men.

She ran down the hallway, listening all the while to the commotion hat echoed through the Louvre. A young guard barred her progress at a juncture in the hallways, and before he was even ready, she struck him across the head with the basket of her rapier, knocking him out.

Alexandra continued along the corridor, but then saw several guards rushing into the other end of the hall, outside of an ornate door that led to the king's royal apartments. Upon seeing her, the six men pointed their muskets at her, three kneeling while the other three stood behind. A series of barks shook the area as she ducked around a corner hastily, avoiding their barrage. She could hear them shouting orders to reload. She leaned her head back against the wall and sighed. Idiots.

Before they had reloaded, she had pulled a small device made of two pieces of flint out of her pocket, along with a tiny clay pot out of the other. From the hole in the top of the pot hung a thin strip of rigid paper. She held the pot by its flat bottom and snapped the flint pieces against one another, producing sparks that caught on the paper and began to burn.

As the flame made its way down the paper wick, she counted slowly and calmly before leaning around the corner, tossing the pot, which skated on its flat bottom along the floor toward the guards who opposed her. She then ducked back, waiting grimly. There were shouts and the sound of boots stampeding, but then an unreal hissing shriek and a bright, flaring white light as the magnesium powder inside the container ignited. Cries of pain followed.

Ten seconds later, the light died, and she rounded the corner and strode down the hallway. Four of the six guards had fled before the grenade went off, while two were writhing on the ground, clutching at their eyes from the flash blindness. She stepped between them and kicked in the door toward the king's apartments before turning around and walking away, knowing that this would create additional confusion as they sought to find the assassin in the red tabard who sought to slay the Sun King.

There was more chaos to sow.

***

Mark and Becky sprinted down the hall, ignoring the pell-mell going on around them. Inevitably, though, they were confronted by a soldier of the Cardinal, one that Mark recognized. It was the captain who had shot him.

Marks teeth clenched as he rushed forward, ready to run the sonofabitch through, but Becky was faster. She threw herself into a skid, sliding along the polished floor, hurtling straight toward the man. He gaped at her in disbelief, but by then, she had slammed her foot into his crotch, doubling him over with a grunt of unreal pain. With a roar, she surged to her feet, grabbed the man around the middle from behind and yanked him over backwards, suplexing him with a noisy crash. Mark had by now skidded to a halt and watched in disbelief while his teacher stood over the supine officer and kicked him in the ribs.

"Bastard!" she raged. "Teach you to kill my students!"

She knelt and yanked his head up, making sure his eyes were open as she pointed at Mark, her voice dripping with vitriol.

"See that?! He's alive! You can't even kill something right! Your life means nothing! Nothing!"

She smacked his head off the tile floor and gathered up her weapons before looking at Mark, composing herself now.

"Sorry," she said with a flush of embarrassment. "You probably wanted him, didn't you? I thought you were dead, so if I ever saw him again, I'd have to avenge you."

Mark shrugged. "No harm done. Except to him, and I don't really-"

Mark stopped talking and stared down the hallway behind Becky. Three men in flamboyant uniforms, trimmed in blue and white like himself were now approaching them. One had a grim, patrician air and about him, the second a handsome boyish charm, while the third towered over the others by a head and shoulders, a contemptuous smirk on his face.

"That can't be good..." he thought.

Becky didn't even blink. Without turning around, she pointed her pistol backwards over her shoulder and pulled the trigger. The bark of the shot echoed around the palace and the giant staggered backward, eyes wide in shock, before he fell over like a redwood. The other two gaped at her in astonishment as she turned around to glower at them. They hastily took hold of their downed friend and hauled him out of sight, their duty to the king forgotten.

"That's right, ladies, run!" Becky called out, her chest heaving. "How's it feel to get beat up by a girl?!"

"You are so sexy right now, Becks." Mark chuckled, approaching her. She turned back to face him- covered with gunpowder smudges, scratches and the occasional bruise, she'd never looked more attractive to him.

Heedless of their surroundings, she threw herself against him and kissed him shamelessly. His hands found her butt and squeezed as he returned the kiss and she moaned into his mouth. If there'd been a rhino horn on his crotch, he'd have been impaled on it. She broke the kiss and looked at him hungrily, her eyes smouldering with desire.

"I'm so glad you're not dead, Mark," she breathed. "I can't wait to prove it to you when we get the fuck out of here."

Mark took her hand and pulled her down the hallway, breaking into a run. They weren't out of danger yet.

"What're you laughing about?" she asked, scowling while she allowed him to lead her through the palace.

"I think that was Porthos you shot," he said almost cheerfully. "Becks, you ganked Porthos."

"Oh, I did not," she hissed, trying to not feel disgust at her student's lack of historical knowledge and basic temporal mechanics. "Porthos doesn't die until 1670. So if that guy dies, it wasn't Porthos. If it was Porthos, he isn't dead. Read a book, Mark."

"Ha, you said bookmark!" he laughed as he pulled her around a corner and down another hallway, trying to reach the point Alexandra had designated.

"Gawd!" Becky groused. "Why was I so damn happy that you lived?! I swear, Mark, I- ACK!!"

They both whirled in panic and threw themselves back around the corner as a withering hail of musket fire peppered the plaster of the walls where they'd been standing mere seconds before. They scrambled to their feet and began running back the way they'd come, determined to not die in some baroque version of Bullet Hell from the Matrix.