A/N: Soooooooooo...HELLO!
Yes yes, I am still alive, don't worry. I have just finished my major finals "end-of-year" examinations, which was why I could not update for so long with studies and revision and school and all that crap.
But now I'm free! YAY, and to make up for not updating in eons, I'm going to be posting 3 chapters in a row! :D
Just in case you guys have forgotten where this story left off, here's a very very brief recap:
Pete's gotta marry this stranger girl Serena, as Aslan said so, on the lunar eclipse or else Narnia will suffer (and Pete's really not happy about this arrangement) Serena harbors some secret as she got upset when Talina (Ed and Ella's child) touched her necklace. Dragon eggs have been found in Narnia, which worried the royals as dragons and their people are long-term enemies of Narnia, and are also supposed to be extinct. Jadis and Jadin are still on the loose, still building up their forces, and they have a new mission. The royals go for a ride in the woods, where we find out Susan has some secret, but just as she is about to reveal it, she sees something and screams.
I really suck at writing summaries, but I hope this has jogged your memory! Now I'm not going to keep you guys waiting any longer, without further ado, CHAPTER 7!
Chapter 7: The Battle with the Bloody Beast
Caspian's POV
The moment I heard Susan's scream, my heart lurched for a split second before I kicked my horse to trot ahead to her, with Lorenzo right on my tail. She and Lucy had stopped, and both of their horses had turned to the left. They were staring at something, both of them completely frozen. I could see their chests rise and fall as their faces were full of worry, panic, shock and fear. As soon as I reached Susan's side, I noticed Peter, Serena, Edmund and Ella bring their horses about as well.
"Su?" I asked, my voice a bare crack as I watched her turn paler by the second. I tried to follow her gaze, but through the thick trees and bushes, I could not exactly make out what she was staring at.
What she was staring at was something in the dense forest, and the sunlight blazing through the canopy of the forest was rather harsh to my eyes, so all I could see was some silhouette. It didn't look that big. It was hidden in between 2 trees, and its position was such that it could only be seen from where Susan and Lucy were.
I squinted at the silhouette; it did not look that harmful at all. It looked like the silhouette of a mere wolf to be honest. And I knew for a fact that these forests were inhabited by innocent creatures, the wolves were definitely not evil. They were also common to see, so I could not understand what was so scary about this wolf.
Suddenly, the bushes and undergrowth of the forest rustled as the wolf began moving forward, towards us. All 8 of us were completely frozen, for some reason unbeknownst to me. Perhaps it was the nagging curiosity of what exactly was this creature, but it felt more like some spell had come over us. No matter how much our intelligence and common sense was screaming at us to do something, move, investigate, take some action; it was silenced by the dire desire to see this creature. I dare say there was something fantastical about this being, even without us fully seeing it, it was enigmatic, drawing us closer, seducing us to stay, to watch it reveal itself. It was maddeningly frightening, the way its spell was cast over us, and I was petrified, just like how Susan and Lucy were, just like everyone else was.
Slowly, very slowly, it stepped out into the trail; out of the darkness and shadows, and into the light.
What stood before me made my heart drop into the pit of my stomach.
It was the most ferocious being I had ever seen, at the same time, a creature I had never even seen before.
I was partially right when I assumed it to be a wolf, but this was definitely no ordinary wolf. It had crimson scarlet-red fur, almost as if its fur had been soaked in blood. Its upper body was almost like a cross between a warrior's and a wolf, and its forearms were long, slender and muscular, giving it an intimidating height. Its mouth was in a growl, showing off the daggers that lay inside, and its eyes were a mix of deep, tantalizing orange, and deadly, poisonous brown.
None of us could take our eyes off of it, as it stared each and every one of us in the eye. Its gaze sent a chill down my spine, and made my hairs stand on end. Threateningly, it raised itself off of its fore arms, so it was almost in a standing position. And then, it let out the most bone-chilling growl I had ever heard, reverberating through the ground to the extent that I could feel it in my gut. That was when we snapped back into our senses.
"GIRLS, GET OUT OF HERE!" Peter yelled as we drew our swords. Normally, I would expect them to protest, and argue that they could stay and fight. But even they knew better than that. Despite the girls being good warriors, they did not have their weapons with them at the moment, and this creature was definitely beyond what they could take on. Still, something told me this was not a creature that could be beaten down by a sword, but nonetheless, we were kings of Narnia. And kings of Narnia never backed out of a battle, or ran away in fear, no matter what the odds were.
The beast suddenly lashed out, its claws drawn as it slashed at Peter's horse. Luckily, Peter's horse was the sharpest horse with the best reflexes, and backed away just in time to miss the slicing. As the beast's attention was on Peter, Edmund went to Peter's side to help protect him while Lorenzo and I decided to attack it from behind. Its hind legs were almost as tall as the horses, so with all my might, I stuck my sword into the back of its thigh. It let out a pain-filled howl, and immediately turned on me, snarling as it whacked me off of my horse with one swipe of its paw. I felt myself airborne before colliding into a tree trunk, the back of my head crashing against it.
I tried to stand, to get my head to stop whirling. My vision was blurred, but I could still faintly make out the fight going on a few feet from me, as Edmund, Lorenzo and Peter tried to take down the monster. I tried to will every fiber in my body to get up and continue fighting, but the earth just would not stop spinning, and my ribs felt like they were on fire and being crushed at the same time. It seemed like decades before I slowly started to black out, and the last thing I heard before my world completely faded out, was the shrill voice of Lucy.
Susan's POV
As we galloped away, I tried to reach behind me to get my horn from the saddle so that I could call for help. That beast looked far too powerful for just the 4 of them to be able to take down. As I fondled my saddle, my heart sank with the realization that it was empty. I yanked the reigns and whipped around, only to see that my horn had fallen off, somewhere between where we were and the scene of the battle.
The beast was still in my line of vision, but that was not what got me panic-stricken. Peter, Lorenzo and Edmund were still valiantly battling the creature, but a few feet from them, there lay my Caspian, unconscious on the ground.
"CASPIAN!" I was not even thinking clearly anymore, just seeing him lying there got my heart racing and my mind kicked into overdrive as I kicked Morina to gallop back to the scene of the fight. I could barely hear Ella and Lucy shout out my name, but I didn't care. Caspian was hurt, and I could not just run away and leave him like that. I was a queen of Narnia, running away should not have even been an option in the first place.
Oh I knew I should have brought along my bow and arrows!
Lorenzo's POV
This bloody beast was huge!
Not to mention ugly, and extremely painful to look at with its bloody, literally bloody, red fur.
Peter, Edmund and I had sort of developed a strategy without speaking, a knack that is needed when you're a warrior of Narnia. We were currently trying to confuse it by encircling it and attacking it from different positions. We were able to find its weak point pretty soon into the fight, also a required skill of a soldier. Despite it being huge, strong, powerful and pretty darn freaky, it was not very smart, and did not exactly have super-fast reflexes.
I had somehow managed to get my horse to ride close enough to it from behind to be able to stick my sword right into its side, and deep enough to get it to howl in pain and grip its side, momentarily stopping its advances on us. But my glory was short-lived, and Mr Ugly Paws was definitely not happy with me as he glared at me and let out this ear-deafening roar right in my face.
"Uh oh," I muttered just as it raised its paw.
"HEY!"
Wait...Lucy?
I turned to the right to see Ella, Lucy and Serena ride back, and somehow they had managed to get some rocks and hurl it at the beast from all directions.
Rocks. Why didn't we think of that?
"Girls, I told you to get out of here!" I heard Peter yell as the creature now turned its attention to the ladies angrily, for unfortunately the rocks barely scraped it.
Really Pete, now's not a very good time to start one of your "why-don't-you-ever-listen-to-me" lectures.
I noticed Susan jump off of her horse and rush to Caspian, who was still lying unconscious below the tree.
My guess was the big dog was getting pretty annoyed with all the fast movement around him, which was what led it to just swipe its paws across all the horses, sending everyone flying. I landed on the ground right on my butt, which was pretty painful to say the least. Our poor stallions were all slashed and lying badly injured on the ground, though thankfully not dead. They could still be saved with Lucy's healing juice.
Great, now we were all left to ourselves against this bloody beast, with nothing but our puny human legs and some swords that were nothing compared to the claws this thing had.
We were all so dead.
Just as I was about to get up, I heard the sharp cutting of air and I turned to see this great big arrow lodged right in the heart of the monster.
Wow, that was a good shot.
Edmund's POV
I sprung up from where I had landed after the beast struck our horses, only to see it fall to the ground with a large thud, a blue tail of an arrow sticking out of its chest.
I heaved a sigh of relief, the only thought running through my mind was "finally, that thing was dead". But a small groan of pain from my right interrupted that thought.
"Ella!" I rushed towards my wife who was only a few feet from me, holding her head as a look of pain was plastered on her face.
"Ella, love, are you okay?" I muttered worriedly as I gently placed my hand on the side of her head, where I noticed a trickle of blood run down.
"Y-yeah, I'm fine. Just…a reaaaally bad headache." She replied in a whine, still holding the side of her head. But I was just relieved that nothing else happened to her, so I enveloped her in a big hug, which she returned with a small chuckle.
"Lucy!" I heard Susan yell in the distance.
Lucy's POV
I quickly jumped up and ran over to Susan, who was clutching Caspian's head in her lap with tears in her eyes. This faintly reminded me of the time she held Edmund in a similar position, after he was stabbed by the White Witch.
Luckily, I always carried my cordial with me wherever I went, and I frantically uncapped it and poured a drop of it into Caspian's slightly ajar mouth. For a few seconds, he was completely still, and Susan choked back a sob as she waited for the juice's healing powers to kick in. Finally, a small cough from Caspian had us all sigh in relief. Susan let out a cry of joy as he slowly sat up, clutching the back of his head.
"You're alright!" She exclaimed as she flung her arms around him, almost choking him in her hug. But all he did was smile and hug her back even tighter.
I smiled at how adorable the 2 of them were, before getting up and heading to the horses, giving them some of the juice to heal up their bad gashes as well. As I did this, everyone went to their respective horses to help them get back up.
Once we were all done, we just stood there and stared at the beast, who was lying dead on the cold, hard ground.
"Now that was one of the toughest battles I've ever had, and it's against one bloody creature!" Lorenzo commented as we tried to make sense of what all just happened.
"Just be glad it's finally dead." Peter murmured, clutching his arm, though I could detect a hint of worry and apprehension in his voice.
"But, who shot it?" Serena quietly asked, and I noticed a small gash on the top of her forehead, probably from her fall.
"That would be me." A voice replied from behind us.
A/N: Wow, I think that was the hardest and longest chapter I have ever written for this series. Writing battle scenes in detail has always been a challenge for me, so sorry if this sucks! I did work really really hard on it though haha
So, who do you think the mystery savior is? Leave a guess in the comments!
And for those of you who left guesses on why Susan screamed in the last chapter, no one got it smack on right, but one person did guess a "wolf or animal" which is closest to the right answer, so here's a shoutout to hungergamer12! :)
As for Susan's secret...besides me dropping hints time-to-time, you actually won't find out until the next story in the series! :O haha i'm so evil eh?
Also, to better vision what the beast is, go to google images and search "red wolf fantastical beast" , it's probably the first option that comes up, the one that looks like a red wolf monster literally haha :)
Just a note; this is NOT a narnian monster, so yeah, hope that clears up some confusion.
PLEASE REVIEW! i swear reviews would make me so happy because, like I said, I worked super hard on this chapter, so any kind of feedback, even constructive criticism, would be greatly appreciated :)
