Page 137 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
“I won’t make it hard for you. Just know that I love you, Léon.” A few tears dropped to the wooden scaffold floor in front of him. “Consider those my last words, won’t you?”
“No,” said Léon. “I won’t.”
He raised his axe high, stepped a foot forward to brace his body, then swung the weapon wide, taking off six heads in one sweep, the loudest and most eager members of his audience. Not the ones who came to see their oppressor die—the ones who had stayed for the sake of violence, had pushed their way to the front, and had screamed for Henry’s head.
Now they had their blood. More than they could ever have imagined.
It was the screams that snapped Henry’s own perfectly intact neck up. A fountain of haemorrhaging scarlet leapt from the necks as the decapitated bodies slunk to the ground, and Léon was down in it. With a tsunami of blood, Léon slashed the axe across every surrounding torso, releasing a veritable waterfall of innards. He held steady as they piled up around his feet, wielding the axe expertly, taking an arm here, a leg there, from anyone who didn’t run fast enough.
Guards came towards him, trying to get a clear shot over the panicking crowd.
“Léon!” Henry screamed. A noise sounded to his left, his head turned sharply, the heads basket shook, then Catherine emerged from it, two pistols held aloft, one of which she shot, lodging a bullet directly in the skull of the man who had the best chance of hitting Léon. “Take these, Henry. And fast!”
He scrambled over to her. “What the hell is going on?”
“Did I ever tell you how much I like your boyfriend?”
“He’s going to get himself killed,” said Henry, exploding the face of another man who’d levelled his gun at his beloved.
“No. Not while he has you.” She put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself as she stepped out of the enormous basket.
“Cathy, get down!” Henry yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Just you worry about Léon. Your sword’s in here too.”
With that news, Henry shoved the guns back to Catherine. “You’d better take these, then.”
“I’ll be fi?—”
“Léon!” Sword in hand, Henry leapt from the scaffold and cut a line towards him. He gave each man in his way as much sympathy as they had given him. Stabbed, sliced, cut down, he fought his way across the square.
He saw the prisoners still in the back of the prison carriage, waiting to be killed. Slipping his blade into the warm entrails of a man who tried to punch him, Henry whistled low and long, and the horses shot forward. The prisoners were flung against one another, down on the floor in a heap as the wheels of the cart ground against stone, smushing anyone who got in the way. The horses were just as merciless as the cart, knocking dozens out of the way, leaving a swath of screams and limbs as they dashed for freedom.
Léon, when Henry finally got to him, was awash with blood. His fight was frenetic. He exuded a dark determination that went beyond survival. It was heads and heads and heads he went for. An arm that came for him would be cut off, but the second that body hit the ground, the head rolled. It was a revenge. It was every screaming and gawping mouth that had yelled at Léon up on that stage. It was every demand for the cruel show of public execution. It was Léon’s own personal setting to rights for the life they had made him live, and for his father, whose blood they had demanded. Now they had blood. A surfeit of blood.
Seeing the lively spark in his eye, Henry took to maiming this man and that, then throwing them in Léon’s path, still alive, just for a few seconds.
“Thank you!” Léon called above the din of screams.
“You’re mad,” said Henry, unable to repress a smile.
“I think so. It was only a matter—” a slice clean across a neck “—of time.”
The last, who hadn’t been smart or fast enough to get away, got Henry's sword deep in his shoulder, and his knees smacked to the bloody ground. Henry kicked him over and put a boot on his back. With one final chop, the head was off, and Léon was in Henry’s arms. His hands ran over his naked biceps, glowing with energy, dripping red. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Bright eyes met his. “I would never let anything happen to you, Henri. Never.” Léon grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him. It was a kiss with all the youth and energy that should always have graced every movement of his young body. Freedom and energy and love.
Henry held him tight, barely able to believe that he got to hold him once more, but without half the faith Léon had in their escape. It was, to Henry, a last-minute gift, and a bitter one. “You shouldn’t have come back for me, Ange.”
Léon’s bloody hand gripped his cheek, and with his forehead pressed against him, Léon said, “You saved me, Henri. Of course I was going to save you.” He gave him another sweet, soft peck on the lips. “Call Destroyer.”
“Did you…” Henry looked around the empty, blood-soaked square. He shot out a loud whistle, and it was mere seconds until they heard the hooves echoing off the walls, louder, louder, two horses galloping into the square. Destroyer moved fast, bareback, next to Azazel, as though they were trained for the occasion. Destroyer came directly to them, Azazel making forthe scaffold where Catherine still waited, having watched the destruction calmly from on high.
“Why is she here?” asked Henry, only a little annoyed because she was clearly unharmed. “Couldn’t you have just hidden the sword?”
“Well,” Léon began, but there was movement from the far side of the square. Horses and soldiers, quickly recalled from Louis’ procession to the graveyard on hearing the news of an attack, moved in. “On the horse. Quickly.”
Henry grabbed the hands Léon threaded together to give him a boost. “You first.”
