The Broken Bards of Paris
~ One Man's Revenge ~
Within minutes, Le Havre is deserted. The pirates set sail. The Hessians march off. The rogues flee. The bodies of the dead still litter the town square in a mass of spilt blood and ropes.
Quasimodo and Cyrano descend the church steps. In the street to meet them are General Tupen, holding a rapier, and Louis XIV, wielding his mighty flamberge. On the monarch's head once more is the Iron Mask.
“Years of planning…,” Louis growls.
“All for naught,” Cyrano retorts, drawing his own blade.
Quasimodo balls up his mighty fists, his good eye focused on the fallen king.
Tupen points his blade up at the descending heroes. “Our cause is far from lost, you dogs! King Louis will once more seat the throne of France. She is ours and will not see shared!”
Louis raises his own sword. “I am your rightful king, ordained by God. You dare oppose me with aid of a devil ghost. You ugly filth are in league with Lucifer. By the power of Heaven, I will smite you both from this earth.”
“WE shall smite them, your grace,” Tupen says. “With them out of the way, we can induct new strategies to restore the aristocracy and take back what is ours!”
Without looking directly at him, Quasimodo tells Cyrano, “Tupen is yours. The king is mine.”
Cyrano's grand nostrils flare in exhilaration. He nods, and the two heroes dash down to meet their foes.
Louis swings his great sword at the charging mass of misshapen muscle, but Quasimodo dodges the swipe, closes in, and lands a tremendous blow to the face of his iron mask. Louis, unfazed by the hit, bashes the pommel of his weapon into the Hunchback's brow. Quasimodo falls, stunned, and narrowly rolls away from the flamberge's descending chop!
Tupen only backs away and parries as he and Cyrano cross blades. Just as fast as Cyrano moves in to strike, Tupen backs off on the defensive.
“You'll never win this way, coward!” Cyrano exclaims.
With his free hand, Tupen reaches behind his back. “I do not fight to win, I fight to not lose!”
From the seat of his trousers he pulls a pistol, points it at Cyrano, and fires.
At the cost of regaining his footing, Quasimodo takes a vicious cut to his left shoulder that severs muscle and strength to the arm below. He does not feel the pain. Moving in again, he grasps Louis' hands, leaps, and kicks the fallen king with the soles of both feet. The flamberge comes loose in Quasimodo's grip as Louis is knocked down on his back. The Hunchback lands nimbly, tosses the sword far and clear, and roars down at his enemy with unmatched hatred.
Cyrano bleeds from the bullet wound in his chest. His red jacket conceals how much blood he is losing, but his paling face indicates that it is much. His movements slow, and his face grimaces in torment.
Tupen laughs as they duel. This time it is Cyrano on the defensive.
“You are a relic of misspent history, a patron of idealistic scum! Die a martyr to your devilish cause!”
Cyrano thinks of a dozen witty retorts but must save his breath for the fight. Tupen's thrusts are easy enough to parry, but the wily general slinks away from his every attempt to riposte.
With a volley of bestial slams and punches, Quasimodo pounds down upon the breastplate and mask of Louis XIV. Battered, but still full of fight, Louis sits up and jabs his fingers into the brute's shoulder wound. Quasimodo wails as the fingers pry and tear his flesh. In the Hunchback's mind, a memory flashes—a kindly, dark-skinned girl writhing helplessly on the end of a hangman's rope. With all the power of his heart, he grasps Louis' ironclad head and forces him to look him in his good eye.
“All that I ever loved!” he screams, and with a nauseating pop, he tears off the Iron Mask, head and all.
Sheet white, Cyrano continues to falter. He fails to parry Tupen's thrust and is punctured through the thigh. He winces, stumbles, and collapses onto the cobblestones.
Tupen stands above him, laughing. “Thus ends your story, blackguard!”
Then the severed king's head, shod in heavy iron, crashes into the right temple of Tupen. His own head cracks like an egg, and he falls into a lifeless heap.
Cyrano closes his eyes in a slow blink. When he opens them, he sees Quasimodo reaching down to cradle him like a baby.
“Please, do not die!” Quasimodo says with a catch in his voice. “Cyrano, you are my only living friend in this world. Do not leave me!”
Cyrano gazes up at the watery-eyed Hunchback and manages to smile.
“I shall give…Esmeralda…your regards, mon brave. Please, give Roxanne…mine…” He closes his eyes and hears the sobs of Quasimodo grow further and further away.
Floating in a void of nothingness, Cyrano hears Erik's voice. “No, no, no, my friend. I will not permit you to steal my act. One dead man is all we need.”
Cyrano is shocked awake in Quasimodo's arms, breathing deep and strong.
“Oh, thank goodness!” the Hunchback cries with exuberant joy. Slowly, he helps his friend to stand.
Out in the city square, they see Erik tying up Madame Josephine with a length of bloody rope.
“I have secured our prize,” he shouts to them. “Though a treacherous villainess she may be, I say we must render unto Napoleon that which is Napoleon’s.”
“Indeed,” Cyrano says, looking at the sour-faced lady. With the aid of Quasimodo, he makes his way closer to them.
“Erik. You restored me to life. In all my studies, in all my readings of folklore and legend, I've never heard of a ghost that could do that.”
The face of Erik's volto mask seems to smile as he gives a shrug.
“Our performance in the church was well received. I have been promoted.”
White, feathery wings sprout from Erik's back and glow with a splendor immaculate.
“Au revoir, my friends. Until we are needed once more!”
With a flap of his heavenly appendages, the Angel of Music takes flight into the night sky and fades from view.
Chapter 13