Chapter Two : Rescue at the Lamppost
Elizabeth ran. Fear drove her.
Stumbling over roots and branches and her own shoes, her legs tangling in snow and terror and the hem of her skirt, she was half-dragged by Michael, blindly. Her breath rasped in her chest, daggers of ice lancing into her cheeks and lungs with every convulsive intake, her face shoving its way through a roiling wall of mist. She couldn't hear the snow-crisp crunches as the wolves loped after them, their death-gray paws breaking through the virgin snow. But, out of the corner of her eye, she could see the flickering shadows of her pursuers pacing her - jumping from static image to static image as the bars of the trees whipped past like a zoetrope.
She knew the wolves were gaining on them – she could feel them behind her, knowing they were closing. She so wanted this to be a bad dream, something she could wake from, but the fatigue and pain in her legs and chest told her this wasn't a nightmare. She really was here, in a strange forest, being chased by talking wolves. She ran harder.
A terrific blow on her left shoulder, spinning her around to face behind her. The teeth of a wolf snapping shut where the back of her head had been a splintered second before. Heavy paws smashing into Michael's braced arm, the hand still on her shoulder, and unlocking the elbow. Michael and the wolf tumbling like lovers as the knife glanced somewhere in the canine's ribs and scattered away among the snow.
Elizabeth rolled over and over, her world a spray of white through which she could hear the snarl of wolves and see the gleaming red and iron of lacquered horse's hooves. Those hooves rose, rearing, as she rolled under them and then came down with the force of a steam hammer, encaging her beneath the torso of a massive chestnut stallion.
Through the trunk-like legs of the horse, Elizabeth could see Michael and the wolf rolling over and over in the snow. The creature had ducked under his offered forearm and its fangs were snarling in his face, held back by a straining hand around its neck. More wolves – a dozen or more – were pouring into the clearing and launching themselves at the three riders standing in the snow.
The torso above her twisted oddly and a long, armored, grotesquely muscular arm reached down and grabbed her by the shoulder. With scarcely any effort, the rider hauled her on to the back of his horse. She scrambled into a seated position behind him as he reached for an arrow and nocked it to his bow, the muscles in his shoulders bulging beneath the wool and mail. From the other side of the trio of riders, an arrow left the string and impacted on a wolf with a fatal thud.
"Help him!" she shrieked, as the wolf clawed and snarled at Michael. The man in front of her drew his bow and tried to draw a bead on the wolf without hitting the man. The six-foot bow creaked uncertainly – there was no way to be sure.
"Throw him a sword!" cried the man in the center, his voice oddly high. Certainly, he was young. Elizabeth turned her head as the arrow held in front of her went flying into the chest of another wolf and a long, leaf-shaped blade landed in the snow by the rolling combatants.
As Elizabeth watched, the man in the center – little more than a boy, if the truth be told – drew his sword from a gules and or scabbard and raised it above the curly blond hair in which a thin golden circlet nestled. The blade glittered in the moonlight like a bar of frozen sunlight, sending splintered reflections stabbing into Elizabeth's eyes. She turned away from the boy in the red, gold and shining mail, looking down at Michael on the ground before her.
The sword had struck, bounced once and – before it hit the snow the second time – Michael's left hand had plucked it out of the air. The heavy bronze pommel crashed into the nape of the wolf's neck, snapping it like a marrow bone, as Michael vaulted back to his feet. The next wolf that leaped for him never made it – its head came away with a single backstroke. As another two arrows flew, Michael spun, switching the sword from his left hand to his right. A decisive downward stroke cracked the skull of another wolf.
As Michael braced his feet and placed both hands on the hilt, standing at relaxed guard, Elizabeth realized there was something wrong with her position on the horse – she was sitting behind someone, and yet was sitting too far forward for that. She ran her eyes down the broad back of the rider in front of her, seeking to see where the saddled was cinched.
There was no saddle, the back of the rider flowed into the back of the horse in front of her. The rider wasn't a rider at all – it was the torso of a Centaur, armed and armored in glittering mail and heavy wool, with thick chestnut hair rolling down his back, rough and harsh like a horse's mane. The backwash of excitement flowed through her veins and she felt faint, gripping at the waist of the torso in front of her to steady herself.
The young king was speaking – she breathed deeply to calm herself and closed her eyes as she listened.
"I killed your captain with this blade, vermin." His high voice carried well in the dark valley under the trees. "I will not soil it with your blood unless I have to. Fly, or I order the Centaurs to shoot." Elizabeth opened her eyes at the creaking of heartwood as longbows were drawn back. Slinking and snarling, the wolves slid away into the shadows under the trees as the young king leaped down into the snow.
Michael was finishing – with a handkerchief and a handful of ice – wiping the blade clean as the young man approached him. With elegant grace, he knelt before him and bowed his head, presenting the hilt of the sword. "Your majesty," he said softly.
"You know me?" The voice was careful and almost incredulous – humans were rare in Narnia for there were none native save him and his siblings; ones dressed in these sort of clothes rarer still.
"You are High King Peter of Narnia," said Michael. He stood as the boy motioned him to. "It would be fair to say I know of you." Michael turned to the Centaur who had thrown the blade and offered it back to him.
The horse-man shook his maned head with a smile. "Keep it, Son of Adam – one who uses a blade so well should carry one," he said.
Peter turned to the Centaur as howls split the air, bracketing and surrounding them. "Hunting calls?" he asked, swinging himself into the saddle of his horse. The Centaur nodded, sniffing the air. "Your counsel, General Oreius?" The Centaur glanced at the woman seated on the back of his companion.
"The Daughter of Eve is not clothed for this weather, night draws in. The wolves do have us surrounded; we could fight, but victory is not assured." He looked down at Michael, who gave a barely perceptible shake of the head, and then back at Elizabeth. "This must be what Aslan wished you to find, sire. I see no profit in lingering." Peter's face twisted.
"Retreat rankles, General – I will not give up the Lantern Waste." Michael accepted Oreius' hand and swung himself onto the Centaur's back.
"Death will rankle more, your majesty," he said, "there is no point in risking a loss for a battle you do not need to win." The King looked over at the older man, a rebuke perhaps on his lips, and then bent his head in agreement.
"We ride for the Cair."