Shalt Thou Forsake Grace?
There have been rumours about the trenches, rumours about a tall dark man, perhaps not a man at all, they whisper but a savage killing machine. Sergeant Colin Pevensie stumbles upon the mysterious stranger and gets more than he ever bargained for.
Authors Notes: This, this was suprisingly hard to write, considering the topic and how I envisioned Edmund. But I quite enjoyed it, thoroughly more like and I think I would quite like to write another one, perhaps in this 'verse though MIT may not be in the same timeline. It is really interesting so hopefully, I wihaving e the inspiration. Furthermore, my general disclaimer is upon the top of my profile. I hope you enjoy it!
"...blessed is The Lord my rock, who is teaching my hands for war, my fingers for battle..." Psalms 11:4
The trenches have been alight with savage rumours for a while and Sergeant Colin Pevensie was not one to ignore the rambling of his men, whether they be half deluded or hallucinating; his men are important, and so shall remain that way and Colin had long since discovered just how detrimental it may be to one if their men did not either respect nor have some devotion to their Commanding Officer.
The rumours are dark, he muses, watching as the sky is lit red in the sinking sun, twisted but with a remnant of truth that he does not really care to think about; they say that this man, a boy really, is what Captain Roberts had shamefully whispered to Colin around a puff of smoke, was tall and dark, but with skin the colour of death.
They said he moved with all the strength of a panther, the stealthiness of a shade and could efficiently dispatch even the most cautious and paranoid of soldiers. Colin does not care to think about the familiarities that he feels in the pit of his stomach when he hears the description.
A short bark of laughter cuts his morose thoughts short and a lit fag is shoved between his lips by an unnamed man, Colin chokes and Captain Roberts bangs him heartily on the back.
"Watch yourself there, mate!" Is thundered into his ears and Colin thinks long-fully of London, sighs its smoggy interior and its sharp grey atmosphere that is better than the shit hole they're currently fighting in, which is mud and dirt and blood and the bodies of those you stood back to back to, even if it is in the most metaphorical sense.
"Stop your morose thoughts, Pev," A rough voice, stale with misuse and fags, roll over his hearing and Colin rolls his eyes at the truly misforgiven nickname; he hated Roberts and he hated that nickname, with a passion. "You're lookin' like you'd rather be dead," the Lieutenant guffaws at his own, flatly fallen joke and the Sergeant is half pressed to not wack Lieutenant Peterson soundly across his head with his own gun. Seemed a bit pointless when the enemy could just shoot him.
But then it is him that is wacked soundly across the back of his head and he grumbled at Roberts, wishing he could just get a handful of mud and shove it into his smug face. 'Bastard,' He mentally grumbles.
But then he catches sight of Roberts expression and feels his heart sink below his stomach; his mud ridden face is giddy, almost childish in the unusual enjoyment present. Peterson takes one look at his superiors giddy face, snorts and then crumbles his fag beneath his boot. Colin spits his own out, deliberately aiming for Petersons muddied shoes. Peterson scowls at him and Colin only sniggers at him. But their playfulness is cut short by Roberts curt but admiration filled tones.
"That savage bastard is heading up to us,"
There is only one savage bastard that Roberts would say with both disdain and admiration. That savage bastard was one whom the rumours was about, about a tall dark man that perhaps wasn't a man at all, perhaps a beast in human form and from what Colin had managed to glean from his soldiers half-hearted mutterings, this savage had earned his nickname, fighting with such efficiency that Colin was hard pressed to not whistle out loud in admiration whenever he heard from soldiers further south in the trenches, about this savages prowess in killing, his stealthy demeanour and cold impassivity. They had been told that this savage had been taught to kill before he had even appeared in the trenches. Something which had made many a soldiers uneasy.
Sergeant Colin Pevensie is no way a cowardly man, with his hands full of callouses and a body riddled with scars, one cannot afford to be a cowardly man, but this mysterious man, a boy was what was being whispered around the trenches, sent shivered up and down Colin's spine and when he heard a whisper of tall and thin, dark but with pale skin and even darker eyes, Colin cannot suppress the shudder of his stomach when he thinks of his youngest son; who was dark and pale, intelligent and with skin the colour of snow. But Colin does not linger upon these thoughts, for his youngest son is supposedly in college, acknowledged by letters sent by Helen and Peter from Oxford.
He does not want to think of his youngest at the moment, the pain is sharp and sudden and he wishes for this war to be over not for the first time.
He is knocked soundly on the head by Peterson.
"When is he s'pose to be getting his arse down 'ere?" His voice is rough, not really wishing to see this stranger that the rumours bound to be a giant, with poisonous breath and a glare like death.
"Beats me, but if 'e comes down 'ere, I don't wanna be in 'is way,"
Neither did Colin.
shalt thou forsake grace?
The first thing that signals Colin to what is wrong is the stillness that has invaded the air around him, how silent it is and he pretends that his heart is not racing and that his mind is blank of all but numbing terror that threatens to unseat him thoroughly.
His eyes are but brown blurs from where the flick to and fro, panicked in their integrity and the squelch of mud beneath his heavy boots are enough to startle even him, as he stays silent, trying to meld with the surroundings, mud and blood and bodies but to no avail.
Behind him, Peterson and Roberts are knocked out cold behind him, though they are stirring with low groans of pains. He wishes that his rifle had not been knocked from his hand by a stray enemy soldier before he had thrust a dagger into the hilt within his eyeball, his hands are woefully bare and Colin feels a little naked without the comfort and protection that he usually gleans from his service weapon. He longs to feel polished steel and heavy metal within his palms and his heart jackrabbits without what Peterson had labelled his 'security blanket'.
Then, the silence of the battle field is broken in the worse possible way.
A battle cry, loud and foreign with such intensity that Colin can feel the ground shake beneath his boots. But before he has even turned a quarter, a strong man is upon him, strange and foreign in his musculature and his deep rallying cries are impossible to disconcert as a blade is held to his throat and the man, for it cannot be nothing but a man, with bloodied hair and wild, crazed eyes.
They grapple for a moment, their voices deep and guttural and just as foreign to one another as they are to each other. The man is shouting something that he doesn't understand, perhaps doesn't want to and he is glad that he remains woefully ignorant. He manages to gain the upper hand, his height an added advantage as he pins the man under his knees, straddling his waist with the mans dagger just in grasp. But then the stranger, well versed and stronger than even Colin, bucked up and was afforded the luxury of advantage. Colin, in a reverse opinion, was held straight beneath the foreign soldier, both sets of eyes crazed with a sort of strange blood lust that only soldiers would understand.
He could see, from where he was held and grappling to no avail with a foreign soldier that seemed intent on sticking his very sharp dagger into Colin's throat, his cheek already bore the succession of their grappling, that Peterson and Roberts were stirring.
Spit landed on his face and Colin was distracted enough for the man, with his crazed eyes to let out a loud snarl, dragging the blade with the efficiency that spoke of professionalism alongside the underside of Colin's jaw and the stinging seeping of blood ma him dizzy in a way he hadn't been before the war, where his own blood would send him being taken ill.
War had knocked that out pretty quickly; war took no prisoners and held no punches.
A heavy blow to the head caught him off guard, lowering his defences as his eyes blurred and his head pounded and through his misplaced tears, he could just see the sight of the snarling soldier raising a dagger high above his heard, blood splattered across his face as he smirked triumphantly down as Colin.
But then, something strange and cold, pale but with a shock of darkness set high above his head, caught Colin off guard, and a pair of pale, thin scarred hands, quick as a flash, wrapped themselves around the mans darker neck and it was with a quiet snap that the man went limp and the strange man gently laid down the now dead soldier.
Colin, stunned into silence, could only watch as the blurred figure of the man who had saved his life turned to Peterson and Roberts, meticulously checking any wounds even as they stirred. Peterson, green gaze wide, let out a stuttering gasp as the face of the man came into view.
Colin's cloud filled head slowly cleared, the mud collecting beneath his fingertips and squelching loudly. Roberts was miraculously unhurt, with only a small trickle of blood from the short, sharp cut from just below his hairline whilst Peterson,a little battered, a little bruised and a little bloodied but still alive. But, as Colin stared in bemusement, they were both slack jawed with muddied face stark beneath their slap and eyes wide. Peterson stared wildly from the stranger to Colin, as if in pure disbelief.
The stranger was still standing with his back to Colin as the Sergeant stood, and Colin stared at the back of the dark head, his heart thudding as he stared at the man who had saved his life.
"Thank you," he whispered, a shaking muddied hand out reaching to touch the strangers shoulder. But a noise of utmost confusion left Colin's throat when the man turned and he came face to face with a face of such familiarity that he almost collapsed; he recognised that nose, those eyes, those cheekbones, that hair. But he didn't recognise the man his son had become.
The savage killing machine, the bastard that Colin had frowned about, was his son, was Edmund Pevensie.
He let out a strangled cry.
shalt though forsake grace?
Silence reigned between the two groups, one full of bewildered soldiers in various stages of being battered and some still half dead surrounding the one, just a group compromised of two men, both alike in dignity and appearance that many believed them to be brother and brother or even father and son.
Sergeant Pevensie let out a wrangled breath that made many a soldier stare at him. "What-how-why?" Colin asked desperately, staring at his youngest son who he still remembered being so tiny and so fragile. This man, this killer could not be his son.
His son did not stand in a regal way even when bathed in blood and mud, his son did not have cold chocolate eyes that surveyed areas he had no place being, his son did not effortlessly wield daggers and guns and what seemed to be a sword. His son did not stare at his father with such impassivity, his son w not tall and lean instead of short and just this side of too skinny. His son was not a man.
"Hullo, dad,"
The surrounding soldiers let out a gasp. The stranger, the mysterious man that was not a man at all but rather a beast, was indeed a man. Was indeed a man that was Sergeant Pevensies son. They stared at both father and son with a renewed sense of respect. They had all heard of the four Pevensie siblings, about Peter and Susan, Edmund and Lucy but it was Edmund, the third child that held Colin's attention, being the closest one to the dark haired child.
They had all heard the stories, about how he would stick close to his fathers side, how he had been utterly heartbroken when his father had been called to war, how he had apparently retreated into himself courtesy of the Sergeants Missus' letters. They would have never believed that this tall, lean man with the cold eyes and the self-possession that seemed so unnatural would have been the same wee Edmund that Colin had raved about.
"What?" Colin asked, his voice desperate and thin with despair as he clutched at the muddied uniform that Edmund supported. "College?" He motioned with his hand, the question asking for him.
Edmund smiled placatingly at his father and Colin tried not to take offence at his sons ability to remain cool faced and emotionless even in such a situation. "No. Mother nor the others know that I am here, they think I am in Cambridge,"
"But why?" Colin cried.
Edmund shook his head. "Peter was cancelled from conscription when he attended University, and then it passed onto the second son, me. And whilst I was accepted into Oxford and Cambridge-" here, Edmund hesitated for the first time that Colin had seen him. "I wanted to do this,"
Colin gave a low cry, his head falling into his hands as a low keen escaped him, his soldiers shuffling amongst themselves. With a pained expression upon his pale face, Edmund took an aborted step forward, only to let out a gasp of surprise when Colin lunged towards his youngest son, throwing his arms around him and dragging them both to the ground. Several soldiers looked at each other, eyes dark and lips tugging down, shrugging others off and away from the two downed men.
A low keen rose from Edmunds broad shoulders before Colin raised his head. Two scarred hands grasped at Edmunds hollow cheeks and brown eyes met brown eyes, both haunted and shadowed. "You foolish, foolish boy,"
The teary laugh that Edmund gave was strangled.
"...the wicked flee when no man gives chase, but the righteous are as bold as lions..."
Proverbs 28:1