--Chapter Three--
Discovered
They stuffed themselves with turkey, mashed potatoes, and something that was unidentified to the kids so they didn't bother eating it. After supper, (for it took them most of the afternoon to walk to Barruffle's house), Reep said that they could explore a little, but to not go far; this was dwarf country. If the dwarfs saw them, they would get chased out, captured, or possibly killed.
They all went out of the house and went back into the forest near the river and took a quick swim. Then they went hiking on the other side of the river. They were having a good time, one because this place seemed friendly and two, for all they cared, (and for all anyone cared back home), they could stay here with Barruffle and Reep. Of course they would have to go back sometime because a life of a mouse even in Narnia was short, and the kids knew it. They knew they couldn't stay with the animals forever because they too would pass away someday.
"This is someplace isn't it!?" exclaimed Austin in astonishment as they got to the top of a knoll across the river. Now they had the compete view of the valley. They saw the hill by Barruffle's house that sloped up to the river. To their right the river slope down a hill, creating rapids. Across the large valley they saw a distant house or two, but that was it. Behind them, the way they were going, was trees, trees, and more trees.
"It's very peaceful," said Laura awing at the view. In fact all of them were awing at the view.
"Should we carry on?" asked Megan after about two minutes of silence.
"Why not? We have nothing better to do," answered Eric.
"And I want to see the rest of this forest," said Michael quietly.
"That's very true," replied Megan, "we have nothing better to do, and it will be fun."
"Then it's settled," exclaimed Austin. At that, they continued on their hike through the forest pointing out interesting things. After an hour of following the river, (the trees continued along the rivers, but the rest was prairie), Megan had found a small diamond, Laura had found a arrow, Austin had found an amber with a petrified beetle in it, and Eric had found something as well, but he refused to tell them until they got back to the hut because he wanted to tell Reepicheep and Barruffle at the same time.
After a while of walking along the river, they decided to leave the river where it met another river, called the Snowy River, and go to the prairie to the south. They walked through the grass. It was greener and less sharper then the Dwarf Country grass. They passed a creek and a thicket before climbing a hill that gave them a better view of the whole prairie.
The prairie was related to the prairie on the other side of the river, it was just greener. They walked down the hill into the prairie. On the top of the hill they could see that there were no houses like the dwarfs, but they could also tell that hit was more populated then on the other side of the river. They kept on walking, but they were still cautious. They walked up and down hills, jumping at the top of them to see if they could see across the prairie, but most of the time it failed. They kept walking at a slow pace, not knowing where they were going and not knowing if they wanted to go far. After a while of walking and seeing nothing but trees of Lantern Waste to their left, the Great River in the distance to their right, and nothing but prairie, Austin finally said something.
"I'm getting bored, and so are the rest of us Eric, so why don't you show us what you found."
"Fine." Eric pulled out a rock shaped piece of gold with the imprint of two triangles making diamond with a dot in the middle.
"That's really cool!" said Laura walking over to Eric. She took the gold out of his hands and examined it more closely.
"Where did you find that again?" asked Austin.
"Back by the river. It was stuck in a tree."
"Stuck in a tree? What kind of gold gets an alien print on it and gets stuck in a tree!?" asked Megan.
"This one I guess," replied Michael.
"Well, why don't we carry on for just a little more. It's getting dark and we don't want to be here when it's dark," said Austin. "We don't know what lurks here."
"I say we go on," said Laura, "I want to see this place and seeing it is much better then reading it, if there are any books on it."
"Then lets go!" said Michael. They walked further on going up and down little knolls. They came to a creek and sat and talked for a bit then decided to go back. They stood up and started walking, but then someone or something spoke to them.
"And who might you be?" asked the voice. Getting used to the surprising voices, they spun around and saw a beaver swimming in the creek.
"Um," stammered Austin.
"Um. What an odd name! But is that all of you youngster's names?"
"No," said Laura, "what my brother meant was that our names are Austin, Laura, Megan, Eric, and Michael." She pointed at her siblings and herself when she said the correct names.
"Oh I get it now," said the beaver. "My name is Harold, but you may call me Hal."
"Hello. Hi. What's up? Yo," said all the kids.
"Excuse me, um, Hal, aren't you afraid of getting attacked by dwarfs for being in Dwarf Country?" asked Austin.
"Dwarf Country? No. This isn't Dwarf Country, this is Beast Country. This is where all the animals live in peace. Why? Where did you come from?"
"Well," started Eric, "I'm pretty sure all mammals come from the same place. It's called the mother's stomach and…"
"I know that!" spat Hal, "I meant where you were before you crossed the river into Beast Country!"
"Oh…" said Eric.
"I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that you were in Dwarf Country. Am I right?"
"Yes."
"Okay." A sudden gust of chilly wind swept across the prairie. "How about I bring you to the town?"
"That would be fine, but we have to get back to the hut before it gets dark," stated Austin.
"Fair enough," said Hal. They walked forward for a while then turned sharply right at a big rock.
"Why is everyone sneaking up on us?" asked Eric.
"I don't know…" said Austin.
"I don't know if we could trust half of the people we meet," said Laura.
"So what's so different in Beast Country?" asked Megan.
"Well for one thing, it's bigger, and most of the beasts are still loyal to Narnia."
"So why do you live separate from Narnia then?" asked Michael.
"Because the dwarf would attack us," replied Hal.
"So how far is Beast Country?" asked Megan.
"From the river to the mountains to the west, the ones that form the border between Narnia and Telmar, and the Narnia River that to the south of us.
"What other "countries" are there within Narnia?" asked Austin.
"Well," Hal stopped for a moment and thought, "there's one more. There's forest country. Forest Country is a big forest area between the River Rush, the Great River, the Great Eastern Ocean, and a hilly region south of the forest near Archenland, but in Narnia. It's called the Archenland Hills, and actually there's another hilly region in Archenland called the Archenland Hills. Those hills are along the ocean cost of Archenland. Otherwise the rest of the country is still Narnia."
"So," recited Austin, "the southern border, along with a big area in the south west, and all of the central, north central, and north east is still Narnia?"
"Well," replied Hal, "it's still all Narnia, but yeah."
"So where is this 'town' and what is it called?" asked Eric.
"The town is a little bit up farther, and it doesn't really have a name, so we call it Terrain."
From then on they didn't say anything until Terrain was in sight. When it was, the kids didn't recognize it as a town at all. It had a bunch of mounds and trees. The only way that they could decipher it from the prairie around it was that it had two paths. One going north and south, the one they were heading towards, and one that ran east and west.
"There it is!" exclaimed Hal. He picked up his pace to a jog. The kids jogged close behind him not wanting to fall behind.
"I don't see anything but hills, trees, and two paths!" said Michael.
"That's the town! We aren't like dwarves; we don't live in huts and tents! We live where our habitat is, whether it's in a tree, underground, or personally my favorite, in a dam."
"It looks kind of depressing if you ask me," said Laura, "it looks bare, bare with dead grass."
"Well I don't know where you came from, so I don't know what you're talking about," stated Hal. "There are four urban areas in Narnia. The biggest in population, second biggest in size is Beaversdam. After that it's Beruna, which is vise versa to Beaversdam. Then there's the town around Cair Paravel, and that's just called Cair Paravel. Then there a town at the top of Glasswater, which is a long narrow bay of the ocean. That town is called Glasswater, and you can probably see why."
When they arrived at the outskirts of Terrain, they stopped to take a brake; Hal quick ate a couple of berries. After the brake they went to the center of Terrain. You really wouldn't be able to tell that it was the center of anything, except for the fact that there were two paths joining together in the 'middle' of Terrain making a cross. They all stopped to sit on and around a rock towards the middle of Terrain.
"So look around. This is Terrain."
"I see nothing," said Megan with a bland sigh.
"Look harder!" suggested Hal enthusiastically.
"Still don't see it," said Megan.
"I think I just saw something move!" exclaimed Michael, pointing to a bump in the ground about fifty feet in front of them.
"Ah, so I see you've spotted a house, a fox's den to be exact. Now look even closer." The kids looked hard, with the exception of Megan staring at the sky and only occasionally looking around, but they couldn't see anything until they took a second look, they started to see it, but it still wasn't clear. It took three to five actual looks to make it out.
At first glance it looked like a prairie with a bunch of small mounds, stumps, trees, and tall grass, but if you were to look harder a couple of times you would start to see it. The mounds had little holes in them, the stumps were bigger then normal, just far away so they looked normal and appeared up close, and they were carved in some places. The trees either had bigger holes in them then usual, about the same size or bigger then owl holes, or the were very abnormally wide at the bottom, carved in areas to the shape of a door, and holes in the side, some the them showing light out. The grass still looked the same, but with the occasional ruffle that was to large to be the wind.
"I see it now!" exclaimed Austin as he pointed in the directions of the trees and stumps and mounds and grass and explained to them what was just explained to you.
"I see it now!" said Laura jumping up from the rock, accidentally kicking Eric in the back, who was sitting in front of her and the rock on the ground. Michael was sitting to Eric's right and Megan was sitting to Laura's right on the rock. Austin was standing on the left side, Hal on the right.
"Do you think they know that we're here?" asked Eric.
"I doubt it," answered Hal, "the homes stretch for about a mile in every direction."
"Do you have a place here?" asked Laura.
"Yes I do. See that tree in front of us. Look to the right until you hit the next tree. That's were a creek is. Now look down the hill to the next tree then look north of that. There's a pile of sticks there. That's my house."
"Cool," said Eric.
"Confusing," stammered Michael.
"Boring!" exclaimed Megan. "What are we going to do now?"
"Actually," said Austin, "I think we better start heading back. Well I hope we get to see you again, and if we don't, the best of wishes are to you."
"And as are to you!" said Hal, "your Majesties!" he added with a grin and a wave. The kids started to walk back the way they came. (Lucky for them Austin kept track of where they were with his outdoors skills.
"What the heck did he mean by 'your Majesties'? Is he cracked?" asked Megan with a hint of frustration in her tone.
"I really don't know, but the only thing that matters is to get back to Barruffle's house, and even more importantly, back to the Mansion. (That's Owner's house.)" said Laura.
"I'm not going back, not after what Eric had to do to her! She'll kill us!" exclaimed Megan.
"It wasn't supposed to hit her!" defended Eric.
"It shouldn't have hit anybody!" spat Michael.
"Yeah and worst of all, you dragged us into it, so now we're all in trouble!" yelled Megan.
"I just realized something," said Laura breaking the tension, "do you think that Owner's still looking for us? I mean it's been hours since we went through that wardrobe thingy, but she may still be looking for us!"
"I never thought of that," claimed Austin. At this time they were neat the Great River.
"Where did you find that gold rock thing again Eric?" asked Laura breaking minutes of silence.
"Somewhere on the other side." They kept on walking to the river, occasionally tripping over a rock that was hidden by the tall grass.
"You know what else I just realized?" asked Megan.
"What?"
"I just realized that here in, um, Narnia, there are no…"
"HELP!" came a yell.
"What was that?" exclaimed Austin with worry in his voice as they all came to a halt.
"HELP, HELP!" Came the call again.
"I think we better go see what's up!" said Laura who was starting to run in the direction that the voice was coming constantly now.
They arrived at the river and saw nothing, but still heard the call for help, so they went through a clearing and some thicket and saw what was yelling. There, lying on the ground was a dwarf with a tree trunk that wasn't that big, but still heavy enough not to lift by oneself.
"We're here!" yelled Austin as he ran down the hill with the river rapids crashing at his side. Laura tried to grab his arm but missed.
"Austin wait!" she yelled but ran after him. Megan followed with Michael and Eric close behind her.
"WOW!" exclaimed Megan when she first tried to lift it.
"What?" asked Eric dumbly.
"It's heavy! DUH!"
"Sorry!"
"Please hurry!" exclaimed the dwarf breathing heavily.
"We're trying!" exclaimed Michael in a somewhat unpromising way.
"ERIC!" yelled Laura half grunting, "get over here and help! We need all the help we can get!"
"I'm trying to find I spot to put my rock where I won't forget it!"
"Just put the stupid gold down and HELP!" she yelled back.
"Fine!" Eric took it out of his pocket. The dwarf saw it and gasped. Eric dropped it on the ground and ran to the tree to help. Shortly after they managed to get the tree trunk off of the dwarf. He didn't even say thank you to them, but he kept eyeing the spot where Eric dropped the gold. He must have been hunting when the tree fell on him because there was a bow and a case of arrows nearby.
"Are you alright?" asked Austin after a long silence. He stuck his hand out to help the dwarf up, but the dwarf knocked his hand away.
"Don't you offer to help me you filthy Son of Adam!" he exclaimed.
"What are you talking about?" asked Austin with a frightened chuckle. The dwarf said nothing for about a minute. He just stared at the kids, and then stared at the spot where the gold was, then back to the kids, then back to the spot and so on. All of the sudden he got up and started running away yelling;
"Chief! Chief! They stole the Sacred Gold, and then dropped it on the ground! Chief, Chief!" There was moment of silence then a bunch of yells that sounded like an army of about fifty nearby.
"Something tells me we better get back to Barruffle's," said Austin, "and FAST!" At that they all started running. Back up the hill and across the stream on stones nearly falling in. When they got to the other side they ran up that side and demanded that Eric put it back where he found it. When he found the spot, he put it back in and turned and ran out into the open prairie, the dry, sharp grass cutting and they're legs. After a short while Barruffle's house came into view. They ran to it and ran inside nearly knocking the door down.
"What in Aslan's name is going on?" asked Reep.