When last Lucy had seen the Witch's castle, she had been with Aslan and Susan, and the Lion's glory had overshone everything; between that and the excitement of freeing Tumnus, she didn't recall much about the castle itself, other than the stone statues in corners and on landings, and all over the outer courtyard. Now, looking at it from the wooded ridge to the south, it looked smaller and meaner than she remembered.

But not so very small that it would be easy to take.

The mail-shirt was heavy and hot. Lucy scowled down at it, barely concealed under her tunic, and kicked one boot at the ground, listening to the soft jingle of the rings. She knew Peter was right about the need for armor, but she still disliked it: it would be hard to run like this, and it was tight across her chest and shoulders, making it difficult to draw her bow. She hoped she wouldn't need to fight, although she wasn't afraid to. And this was her chance to actually do something useful and valuable, the way Susan had in the mines, or with the Centaurs. Lucy was tired of being left behind, of being the baby, always protected. If there was some way she could help, she wanted to do it.

Mr. Beaver sat next to her, placidly chewing on a length of wood as they waited. Beyond him, deeper into the woods, Lucy saw Rex, Dora, and Barton, the three Dogs who were acting as Wolves in this bit of deception. Rex was scratching his ear with one oversized foot, and Barton lay on his back next to a tree with his feet splayed, as comfortable as if he were in front of a cozy fire, instead of just about to go into battle. Rankin the Dwarf tested the string on his bow: it went twang quite loudly in the humid afternoon air.

Susan and Edmund had left Tumnus' cave the previous afternoon with Rhea and Tumnus, to meet the recruits gathering in response to Peter's call. Some hours later, Tumnus had come back, accompanied by two dozen Talking Animals and other Narnians, whom Edmund had sent to help Peter and Lucy in their assault on the Witch's castle. Tumnus and his cousin Torvus had led them southeast for some distance, pacing quietly down forest trails in the dark, before doubling back north. They had camped in the woods east of the castle before midnight. The hours since dawn had been spent in planning and argument, as one strategy after another was considered and rejected by Peter and Torvus, who was a Faun with a great deal of military experience and only a little resemblance to Tumnus. The current plan was one Peter had agreed to in desperation, and only if Lucy carried a bow, wore the mail shirt she had borrowed from one of the Dwarfs, and stayed with Beaver at all times.

Edmund had sent a message a few hours ago that he and Susan were on their way to engage with the Rebels. There had been no word since, and Lucy had begun to worry, although she knew she would be wiser to be concerned about her own part here, rather than worry about a battle miles away she could have no effect on.

In frustration, she stood up, stomped around in a circle, and sat down again on the rock next to Beaver. Lucy wondered idly why the Beavers didn't have names, the way the Fauns and Dogs and Bears did. What would Beaver call his children, after all? "Peace, queen," Beaver said, spitting out some bits of wood. "We'll be on the move soon enough."

And he was right, because not thirty heartbeats later, there was a flash above as a Cardinal came to rest on the tree above Lucy. "They are in position, my queen," the Cardinal said, and bobbed a bow. Lucy liked the Cardinals: they were prettier than the Magpies, but apparently not as good at remembering long messages.

"That's it, then," said Beaver. "Ready to run, my dear? Just like old times!"

Her bow and quiver were already over her shoulder, and her knife and cordial were at her belt. Lucy squatted to make sure her boots were properly tied, then took a great breath and stood up again. "I'm ready," she said. "Now, remember," she said to Rankin, "you must make it look as though you are desperate to catch us, so give us a good lead." Rankin just nodded. He wasn't one of the talkative Dwarfs.

The Dogs all leapt to their feet, and Rex gave a kind of all-body shimmy that made Lucy smile. "Well," she said. "May Aslan's blessing be with us all!" And she began to run.

Lucy and Beaver burst out of the woods due south of the castle, directly opposite the gates, which had not yet been rebuilt after Giant Rumblebuffin destroyed them. The castle sat in the middle of a small plain or a great field, surrounded by open ground, so anyone approaching the castle from any direction would be sure to be seen. It was some distance across the field: several hundred yards, at least, and there was no road. The grass grew thick and dense, and grasshoppers and butterflies burst up and out of the greenery around them. Beaver galumphed along behind her, moving remarkably quickly. They were not sprinting: they would need their wind at the end, and they were trying to convince the watchers in the castle that they had been fleeing for some time. But they were still running quite fast, and Lucy could feel it in her legs and her lungs.

It was much harder than the last time she had raced anyone at school, but then of course she hadn't worn a mail shirt or carried any weapons. Sweat ran down her face and into her eyes, and she swiped it away with an impatient hand. "Do they see us yet?" she gasped to Beaver, but he didn't answer.

They were out in the middle of the field now, halfway between the castle and the wood. If anything went wrong now, there was little chance of getting back into cover. Oh! Lucy had forgotten she was being chased. She looked over her shoulder and was relieved to see that Rankin and the Dogs were already closing the distance, moving fast. If Lucy had not known better, she would have been quite frightened: Rankin had such a look on his face, and the Dogs were snarling, their hackles raised.

"There!" gasped Beaver, and Lucy looked ahead to see that it had worked! People were coming out of the gate towards them. Two, three, four-Lucy lost track, but it was a group of Narnians, led by two Dwarfs.

Now it was time for her play-acting. "Help!" she cried, as she and Beaver came closer to the castle walls. "Help, please, they're going to kill us!" She slowed down: it would not do to go into the castle, not yet.

Peter and the others must be on their way by now, she thought, and then she was stumbling forward into the middle of the crowd from the castle. Which was not, she remembered belatedly, the plan: they were all supposed to meet at the same time, so she would not be isolated.

But she had run too fast or Rankin had waited too long, and now here she was, surrounded by the members of the Western Narnian Patrol, with nothing to protect herself with but her dagger and her unstrung bow. This was not how it was supposed to work, and if things went wrong, Rankin and the Dogs were too far back to help her. Well, she would just have to play her part and hope it worked out.

"Please," Lucy gasped to the Dwarf who seemed to be in charge, a red-faced fellow in sturdy mail with a yellow cap on his head instead of a helmet. "Please protect us! The king will reward you!"

"Reward?" said the other Dwarf, who looked younger than the first and wore no mail, just a quilted doublet. "I could do with a reward, Brikamun."

Brikamun scowled, but nodded. "Aye, true enough. Dinabrun, show them they're in our territory now. Filthy Witch-lovers! They should know better than to come near here."

Dinabrun strung his bow with quick movements and put an arrow to the string. Lucy caught her breath: surely they weren't just going to shoot Rankin or the Dogs? But Dinabrun merely sent the arrow into the ground in front of the little group, and Rankin came to a halt, his bow raised.

"That's our prisoner!" he shouted. "You give her back!" Which was more than Rankin had said since dawn, although it still lacked something of the drama Lucy expected.

"Please, no!" she cried, and clutched at Dinabrun's arm (thereby fouling his aim). "They'll kill us!"

"They won't have you," said Brikamun, and leered at her with brown teeth (it was possible he was trying to smile, but if he was, it was the most horrible smile Lucy had ever seen). Lucy tried to hide her reaction, since she was pretending to be grateful for the rescue. "You'll come back inside with us and we'll have a nice chat, won't we?"

Which was the moment when they heard the shouting. Lucy spun around to see Peter pounding towards them, sword in hand, at the head of nearly two dozen Narnians, including a Bear, an Eagle, half a dozen well-armed Fauns, and a Centaur with a sword as long as Peter was tall. Lucy gave a little shriek, which was drowned out by the yelling of the Patrol members around her, as they realized they'd been ambushed.

Brikamun was smarter than Peter had expected, because only a moment after they saw Peter, he grabbed Lucy by the arm and yanked her to the side. Lucy twisted and pulled, but he were very strong. There was a confused moment while she was struggling and she heard Beaver shouting, but she couldn't get free.

When the shouting stopped, she realized that Brikamun had his arm around her neck and a dagger in his other hand. He was shorter than she was, but much stronger. When Lucy grabbed his arm to free herself, it tightened, until she was gasping for breath.

He said, with an ugly laugh, "You be quiet, girl, or there'll be blood, and it'll be your fault, see?"

He jerked her forward, though she turned her head to look for Beaver, and she staggered along with him, feet catching in the long grass, until he came to the front of the small group of Patrol members.

The gate-guards were completely surrounded by Peter's Narnians, and beyond them, Lucy saw more of Peter's company entering the castle through the unguarded gate. Peter stood just ten yards away, sword in hand and tufts of hair sticking out the ear- and horn-holes in the absurd Faun helmet he was wearing. His face went blank when he saw Lucy, which meant nothing good, she feared.

"Lay down your weapons!" shouted Torvus, and Dinabrun shuffled sideways a little, as if he were considering it. But Brikamun snarled at him, and he stopped moving.

"I have your girl here!" shouted Brikamun, shaking Lucy with one arm, and waving his dagger with the other hand. Lucy stared at the dagger: it was quite long, and looked poorly-kept, with a rusty spot near the hilt. "Let us go or I start to cut her! You don't want her pretty blood spilt, do you, Human?"

Shoot him, Lucy thought at Torvus, who had his bow drawn and an arrow on the string. But Brikamun was smart enough to keep her in front of him, and it would be a difficult shot for anyone, even Susan.

She was supposed to be afraid, she knew. Her heart was pounding, and she was very worried about Beaver, and about everyone, really. Except herself. Why wasn't she afraid? Oh, she thought, she almost had it, and then Peter raised Rhindon and held it in front of him, blade pointed at Brikamun.

"If you hurt her, I will kill all of you. No one will survive. This I swear, as High King of Narnia." Peter's voice carried clearly, echoing from the walls of the castle. He didn't look silly anymore, even in the Faun helmet. He looked like he could, in fact, kill them all. Like he was eager for an excuse.

Dinabrun looked uneasily at Brikamun, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He wasn't alone. As the Patrol members around her shifted uneasily, edging away from Brikamun, Lucy remembered why she wasn't afraid.

"Human king!" sneered Brikamun, and spat. He shook Lucy again. He smelled like smoke and something rancid, and his beard scratched against her skin. "What good have Humans ever been for Narnia? The Witch was right about you after all! You're a fraud, and so is this child-bride of yours-aiyeah!"

Brikamun's words turned into a howl of pain. Because as he spoke, Lucy had taken the small knife at her belt and slashed his leg open, just below the bottom of his hauberk. He dropped his arm from around her neck in shock, and before anyone else took a step, Lucy spun out of his hold and then set the bloody tip of her blade to his throat. The Dwarf's eyes went wide, and his face paled as he stared at her.

"My name is Lucy Pevensie, and I am your Queen," she hissed, and pressed with the tip until a drop of blood welled up. "Drop your weapons."

And they did.


The first time Lucy had seen the Witch's castle, it had been an eerie sight, tall glowing towers and smooth walls, coated in ice lit from within. It had been mysterious and terrifying-unnatural in a way different from the homely, ordinary magic native to Narnia. Now it was smaller: dull, in fact. The walls were an uninteresting grey-brown stone, topped with wood and tile roofs. The doors were the same as Lucy would have expected to see in any castle in England: sturdy oak bound with iron bands. Even the sharp towers now seemed short and squat, and Lucy wondered if the Witch's magic had affected even the appearance of the castle from a distance, in order to keep Narnians in fear of her. She would not be surprised if it were so.

"Spread out!" Peter directed his miscellany of followers: Fauns and Dwarfs, Dogs and Badgers, Mr. Beaver and (surprisingly) Broadclaw the Badger, who had arrived while Lucy and Beaver were beginning the diversion. "I want to know everything that's in here: supplies, weapons, prisoners. Let's clear this place out, make it clean enough to serve a new Narnia, as Aslan would want from us."

Before they had entered the castle, Peter had hugged Lucy hard, the leather of his cuirass flattening her nose against his chest. Then he pushed her away and examined her carefully, keeping his hands on her shoulders. "You're sure you're all right, Lu?"

Lucy had nodded, and forced herself to smile weakly. "I'm fine. I don't want to do that again, though!" She looked down and sheathed her knife. If there were time, she thought she might like to sit down and maybe have a little cry, but there was no time. And she wouldn't shame Peter by weeping now, besides which it would undo all the arguments she had made earlier. Queens do not weep in public. So when he turned away, she strung her bow, and made sure her knife was secure in her belt, and hoped no one saw her wipe her eyes.

Now, she stood attentively at Peter's side, as he sorted his company into groups to search through the castle. The Patrol members who had been captured outside were bound and guarded in the courtyard. If Edmund had been correct about the numbers, there would still be eight or ten of the Patrol in the castle, but Peter did not seem very worried about them.

"Keep your weapons with you, and look sharp. Let's go, then!" And he waved them on. Torvus led a squadron of Fauns through the front door of the main hall, while Peter took Rankin, Broadclaw, and some of the Dogs up onto the ramparts.

Lucy looked around, and found herself surrounded by more Dogs, and Beaver, who nodded serenely. "Are we going, queen?" asked Rex, one long ear flopped open endearingly. Barton was on his feet, quivering with eagerness, while Dora looked half-asleep, her head on her crossed front paws.

"I think we must," said Lucy, and led her little team up the long flight of stairs into the great hall. Torvus and his team went off to the left, so Lucy turned right. The rooms were smaller than she had expected: dank and musty, as if the melting ice had gone to mold. In one of the larger rooms, they found a magnificent dining set: a long table and a dozen chairs made of some dark and shining wood that smelled faintly of spices, carved with scenes of camels and a great bird with a vulture's head. Lucy would have found it lovely, but there were dark stains on the floor, and when Dora sniffed at them, her hackles went up.

A storeroom behind the dining hall held bags of flour, or some other ground grain. Beaver made a note on a slip of paper he had found somewhere. In the distance, there was a shout, and Lucy jumped, but nothing else happened, and she decided to move on.

After the storeroom, the hall passed the kitchens (which were almost empty, and Lucy wondered what the Patrol had been eating and then realized they probably didn't cook at all, as most of them were Beasts), and then ended in another iron-bound door. This one had a key in the lock; Lucy looked at it uncertainly.

"High King Peter did say to search it all," Beaver said, and Lucy sighed.

"Yes, he did." She turned the key, which was very cold (although it was a warm day), and the door opened stiffly. A cold breeze eased through the doorway, and in the dim light from the high windows, Lucy saw a narrow stairway going down into darkness. "Someone fetch a torch," she said. (It only occurred to her much later that this was the sort of thing a queen would say, and expect to be obeyed, and she had said it without even thinking.)

Several minutes passed while Rex was gone. Lucy leaned against the wall and tried not to think about what would be in a dungeon belonging to the White Witch. Jadis had been fierce and strong and hateful: she had tormented Edmund and killed Aslan in a frenzy of hate and ambition. But she had not been as powerful as she thought: Aslan, of course, had broken her power, turning her malice into glory.

But standing here in the Witch's own fastness, Lucy was reminded of the strength of the Witch's hold on Narnia. One hundred years she had ruled, and in that time Aslan himself had not been able to break her power. Narnians had starved and fled and fought and compromised and died under Jadis' rule, but none of them had defeated her, not even the good Giants or the wise and powerful Centaurs. And if the Witch had been willing to sacrifice Aslan himself for power, what else might she, could she, have done?

What evils took place in these walls? Lucy shivered, and rubbed her arms.

Rex came running up the hall, a half-extinguished torch held sideways in his jaws. Lucy rescued it before he dropped it or drooled enough to put it out entirely. After a few moments, the flame settled into something that might serve. She swallowed and set her foot on the first stair. She couldn't carry both the torch and her bow, so she kept her bow on her shoulder, and instead drew her knife with her left hand. "Let's go," she said.

The stairs led downwards in a straight, short flight, and paused at a broad landing on a hallway that stretched away to the right and left. Lucy listened: there was nothing living down here, not if her ears or that strange knowing she had developed were to be trusted. "Dora, Barton, you check that way," she directed, and led Rex and Beaver the other direction.

What they found were empty rooms: cells, to be precise, as they had ornate wrought-iron doors which could only be locked from the outside. They were, thankfully, empty of any prisoners, although the chains and shackles gave evidence of frequent use. There were stains on the floor Lucy didn't want to examine, and the cells smelled of urine. In the second room Lucy examined, she found a scrap of cloth on the ground, and stared at it for a long moment before identifying it as Edmund's pocket handkerchief. She picked it up and folded it carefully before tucking it away inside her jerkin. He probably wouldn't want it, she knew, but it seemed wrong to leave it here.

All the cells were empty, the shackles on the walls hanging open. Lucy was grateful for that: at least the Patrol wasn't imprisoning any other Narnians. But the stairway continued down, past this floor of empty cells. Where did it go? Nowhere good, she had to assume.

This time, Rex insisted on leading the way: Lucy followed his gently-waving tail down into darkness. It wasn't like the royal archives at Cair Paravel (the discovery of which now seemed to be years in the past, not merely a few weeks): the stairway was much narrower now, and it twisted upon itself at least twice, so they lost sight of the doorway above. The air changed, as well; what had been merely dank above became thick and foul, reminding Lucy of nothing more than rotted vegetables.

Something horrible was down here. She wished she had more light than this single torch.

Beaver, sticking close beside her, hesitated between one step and the next. "We could send for help," he said, quietly, but Lucy shook her head. She had three Dogs and Beaver, and her knife and bow. The Witch was gone. And Aslan was with her, as he always was.

The stones beneath her feet were smooth with wear, worn down in the center of the step as though thousands of people had passed before her. How old was this castle, she wondered; perhaps it wasn't built by the Witch after all. She should ask Tumnus about it.

She stepped forward again and was startled as her foot hit the floor. They were at the bottom. The hall led away to the left (west, if Lucy's sense of direction was still sound). Rex sniffed and said, "No one living is here, queen."

Dora growled. "No one living, no." She pushed past Lucy and Beaver, and padded up to the first door on the right: a sturdy wooden door, bound with heavy metal bands, different than the cell doors upstairs. She sniffed, and the fur on her shoulders rippled, and then settled. She went on to the next door, this time followed by Barton. Their nails clicked on the stone floors: tick-tick-tick-tick-tick as they went, pacing down the hallway in the torchlight.

Lucy followed, until Dora stopped at the fourth door. She sniffed, clawed once at the bottom of the door, and then whined. "Here," she said, and this time her hackles didn't settle. Her voice was thick with anxiety as she said it again: "Here, queen. Here."

There was no key to this door: just a heavy bar made of iron and oak, the wood discolored with age and the metal rusting. Lucy levered the bar out of the brackets with Beaver's help and set it on the floor. It made a dreary, dull clank as it hit the flagstones. Now she wished she had sent for Peter, but it was too late. She wiped her hands on her tunic and pulled on the rough iron handle. The door swung slowly outwards, as if too heavy for the hinges set deep into the stone walls.

On first glance, in the flickering light of the torch, the room was much like the cells they had already seen upstairs. It was a small room, perhaps ten feet by ten, with a low ceiling and a narrow trench in the floor on the far side. Metal rings were set into the walls (presumably for chains). There was nowhere to place a torch, which Lucy found upsetting: the prisoners held here were meant to live in constant darkness. The room appeared empty, but as Lucy raised the torch, she saw a pile of rags in the corner, and something glittered.

Her mouth dried up, and the torch shook in her hand. I watched the Witch kill Aslan, she said to herself. I can face this. She forced herself into the cell, and Dora paced alongside her, body pressed close to Lucy's legs.

The bundle in the corner was in fact a pile of rags, but not only rags. Something white and smooth protruded from under the dark blue cloth, and Lucy flinched. She looked for the glitter that had caught her eye, and instead saw a shoe.

It was a sturdy shoe: made of leather, with laces and a rubber sole. A boy's shoe, as the blue wool coat was a boy's coat, and the tweed cap laying on the ground was a boy's cap. An English boy's cap, Lucy thought, or close enough: not a Narnian cap. Narnians didn't wear caps.

"Human," said Dora, after a sniff.

"Eh? What's this?" Beaver bent down and picked up something. When he held it up to the light, Lucy drew in a shaking breath. It was a watch: steel on a leather band, like Peter's, though the leather was rotted and moldy. It said that the time was 3:17.

Lucy turned and stumbled out the door, nearly dropping the torch. When she reached the hallway, she wanted to sit down and cry, or maybe be sick, but instead she forced herself to cross to the door on the other side of the hall, and open that. Empty. She went on, to the next one, and ignored Beaver and the Dogs as they asked questions and followed along behind her.

The next cell was not empty. This cell held bare bones under scraps of something filmy and pale blue, like a dress Susan used to wear to church when she was younger. Beaver pulled at the torn and threadbare cloth, revealing long pale strands of hair, and Lucy barely left the cell fast enough.

There should be only four occupied cells, she thought. But she was wrong. There were seven, and the occupants of the last three were not, she thought, English. Their clothing had been rough, multi-colored woolens (now rotted with age-the cloth fell into pieces as Beaver handled it); their shoes were leather sandals, their hair was darker even than Susan's. Lucy didn't know, couldn't tell, where they were from: India, the Americas, maybe even Australia. Or perhaps they were from the countries outside Narnia's borders, if there were Humans in those lands. How long had they lain here, alone and forgotten in these cold and empty rooms? Long enough for there to be nothing left but bones and tattered rags of cloth.

The rest of the cells were empty. Lucy did not allow herself to wonder about unmarked graves under the snow during Jadis' Winter.

Even Beaver was silent now. The torch was burning down; Lucy let Rex lead them up the long dank stairway. As they wound their way through the castle corridors, Lucy moved faster and faster, until when they came out into the evening light of the courtyard, she was running.

Peter was standing in the open gateway, speaking with Tumnus, while around him Fauns and Dwarfs piled, sorted, and counted supplies. He looked lively and clean and hopeful, his blond hair tousled by the breeze. When Lucy threw herself against him, sobbing, he didn't say anything, just held her while she wept into his jerkin. She didn't care about looking like a queen anymore.

When she was done, he gave her his handkerchief, which reminded her of Edmund's, and the tears restarted, but she forced them back. Peter's handkerchief was soggy by the time she pulled away and wiped her eyes. "Peter, you have to see," she said.

"See what? Lu, what is it, what did you find?"

She shook her head, and instead waved at Beaver, who was very politely staring at something across the courtyard, just out of earshot. "Beaver," Lucy said, when he approached, "can you show my brother what we found? He must see it."

"All right," said Peter, and she could tell he thought she was over-reacting to something; he had that same look on his face when she first told the others about Narnia. He should know better by now, but she was too sick at heart to be angry. He would learn, as she had.

"Go," she said. "Before it gets dark." She would stay here, in the sunlight. And think about prophecies, and thrones, and Deep Magic, and the Son of the Emperor Over Sea.


With a whoosh, the axe skimmed past his helmet with inches to spare. As it flew over, Edmund surged up and swung his sword in a vertical arc, using it more like a cricket bat than the weapons-master Silversharp would have approved. But it worked-he caught the Minotaur squarely in the crotch, and the creature howled and dropped to the ground, writhing in pain. It dropped its axe in its distress. Out of sympathy, Edmund hesitated an instant, then remembered that this Minotaur had just killed two Dwarfs before Edmund's eyes. He couldn't leave it alive to do that again. He cut its throat, and moved on.

He did not bother to clean his sword: it would be bloodied again soon enough. And at least his hands had stopped shaking.

The battle did not much resemble the last (and first) battle Edmund had fought in; this was much smaller, with fewer participants, and cramped into a shallow meadow bounded by a deep but narrow river on one side and a dense mixed forest at the other. It was neither as orderly nor as epic as the battle against the White Witch. It was also, frustratingly, not where Edmund had intended to fight.

No plan of battle survives contact with the enemy, the old maxim said, but it did at least assume contact with the enemy before one threw the plan of battle out the window. Edmund ground his teeth and plucked up a fallen spear, its shaft smeared with its owner's blood. He looked around and then dove back into the melee, following Fraxinus' gang as they charged a covey of Harpies savaging a Centaur.

The Harpies were the worst: Edmund had no air power, no Gryphons or Phoenix, merely a handful of messenger-birds and two Eagles. Nothing big enough to do much damage. He did, however, have Susan and her archers. He grunted approvingly as one of the Harpies took to the air and was promptly skewered by a red-fletched arrow.

The two forces were roughly matched in size, although to Edmund's inexperienced eye, the Rebels had the advantage in weight: there were several of those one-eyed giants (Cyclops? Fine, call them Cyclops), Minotaurs, and Ogres spread out across the field, most of them holding off determined assaults by Edmund's lighter forces. To his right, he saw Bruno and one of his Wolves taking on one of the Cyclops, but not doing a great job of it. The Grizzly was powerful and sneaky, but slow to react, and the Cyclops was taking advantage of that. Edmund shrugged: he was too far away to help, and if Bruno died, well, that might take care of one of their problems. (Lucy would be appalled at his calculating attitude, but Edmund rather suspected Susan would agree. She had grown distinctly unfond of Bruno during the morning's march, not without good reason.)

Fraxinus was a devil with a morning-star, and before Edmund caught up with him, he had driven most of the Harpies away from the Centaur. The Centaur was one of Spearfast's sons, and his left rear leg was broken. He might be able to get off the battlefield, but he wouldn't be able to keep fighting like this.

Of course, as a Centaur, leaving the battle wasn't even on his mind. "Give me your spear, king," he said urgently. "I will guard your back." Oh, Aslan, not another one eager to die for Edmund's sake. Well, to blazes with that.

"No, you won't," said Edmund. "Head for the rise-Ilexus, you go with him. You can stay in one place and guard my sister." He tossed the bloody spear to the Centaur.

Not that Susan really needed any guarding, with Rhea by her side, but the command certainly perked the Centaur up, and he hobbled off with enthusiasm. Edmund felt suddenly exhausted, as though he were forty years older than the Centaur.

There was a shout behind him. Edmund spun, Fraxinus leaped forward, bounding a good twenty feet on those goat legs, and the battle swept around them again.

This was not how it was supposed to go. Their company was supposed to have surprised the Rebels at their camp some miles further north, but something had gone wrong, and the Rebels had come crashing into them while they were still marching through the forest. They'd been cut neatly in half, strung out as they were along the rough trail, and only Spearfast's mad charge had saved them. As it was, they'd lost half a dozen Dwarfs, Fauns, and an Elk along the trail, before breaking through into this meadow where they could make a stand.

It was ugly and disorganized; there had been no time to establish an order of battle, and Edmund missed, desperately, the clear lines of communication they had had for the battle with the Witch. You were not prepared for this, said an ugly whisper inside his head, and he couldn't argue. He was eleven years old: what had made him think he was ready to lead a company into battle?

The battle now was, so far as Edmund could tell from the perspective of one surrounded by bloody madmen, complete chaos. The only thing he was sure of was that Susan and her archers were on a low rise to his rear, protected by Rhea and a number of Dogs and Great Cats. Fraxinus and his squad stuck like glue to Edmund, watching his rear (and his sides, and usually his front too), but other than that Edmund had no clear idea what was going on in the rest of the battlefield. He wasn't tall enough to see over Fraxinus' shoulders, much less over the rest of the scrum. He didn't know if they were winning or losing, how many casualties they had taken, or even if the Rebels had a leader.

"I need a scout!" he shouted to Fraxinus, while dodging a wild swing from an Ogre. It was smaller than the one Peter had killed in the forest, but better armed: this one had an axe in one hand and a club in the other.

"For what?" shouted Fraxinus back, and swung his morning-star at the Ogre. He missed, though: the Ogre was faster than expected, and its return lunge nearly took off Fraxinus' head.

Edmund rolled his eyes and swung at the Ogre from behind: he missed the hamstring, but hit it hard enough behind the knee to send it staggering forward. "Intelligence! Are we losing or winning?"

Fraxinus seized the opportunity Edmund had given him, and moved with dispatch, sending the Ogre to the ground, clutching at his ruined throat. "We're not running away, king, that must mean we're winning!"

But when Edmund merely snarled at him, Fraxinus shrugged and put a small pipe to his lips. The whistle he sounded was piercing and thin, almost too high for Edmund to hear, but then he was not its intended audience. Within moments a dark shape was winging to them over the battlefield, jinking around the Harpies making snatches at it, and at least once dodging an arrow from one of the rebel Dwarfs not killed in the first crash of battle.

The Magpie spiraled around them once, and came to a fluttering halt on Fraxinus' shoulder. "I hope this is important, did you see that Harpy, it nearly got me!"

"What's the situation?" asked Edmund, turning so he could keep an eye on Fraxinus' back. "Are we winning?" They were in a temporary lull, a pocket of quiet as the battle went on around them. In the distance he saw arrows fly, and a Harpy shrieked in rage, but he couldn't tell if they'd hit anything.

"We're not losing," responded the Magpie. Edmund stared at him balefully, and the Magpie gave a long-suffering sigh and launched himself into the air from Fraxinus' shoulder. Up he went, climbing fast, and then when he was out of arrow-range (if not out of range of the Harpies), he swung into a wide circle, and then another. Edmund gritted his teeth and glanced around uneasily. He hated staying still while others were fighting, but he really did need to know the state of the battle before deciding what to do next.

At his feet was the body of a Red Dwarf Edmund recognized from last night's campfires. They'd come in from the west, some tiny village in the hills that even Fraxinus had never heard of. The Dwarf (Edmund wished he could remember his name) had been gutted, and his sword, only a little longer than Susan's dagger, lay broken at his side. Edmund swallowed, grateful that he had not eaten breakfast, nor anything else since dawn. He looked around, realizing that he was desperately thirsty, and then the Magpie returned, coming to rest on his own shoulder this time.

"Well? How does it look?"

"It's a mess, king. Everyone's scattered all over, but there's a crowd of the Rebels forming off that way." The Magpie nodded to the northeast. "A Minotaur is pulling them together. It'll be trouble for us." Scatterbrained the Magpies might be, but this one knew the gravity of his message, and he bobbed his head nervously when he finished speaking.

Edmund bit his lip, considering, but he really had few options.

"Look out!" shouted Fraxinus, and tackled Edmund as a Harpy swooped down on them. They landed in the mud next to the dead Dwarf, and the Harpy screeched with disappointment; it carried away with it Edmund's helmet, and some of his hair. Edmund pushed Fraxinus off and scrambled to his feet. His exhaustion was at least for the moment replaced by rage, or fear (it was hard to tell the difference).

"We pull back," he said, and spat out a mouthful of bloody mud, mixed with trampled grass. "Get the word out: we're re-grouping at Susan's hill."

"Hill" was an overstatement: Susan had stationed her archers on a low rise at the edge of the trees, barely ten or twelve feet higher than the rest of the field. As their forces gathered around him, Edmund wiped his sleeve across his face, and stared out at the battleground.

The Magpie had been right: they weren't winning. There were more of the Rebels than of his own Narnians, even with the Patrol added to their numbers. And the Rebels were better armed, and more wild and vicious in their attacks-Edmund suspected they were fighting out of despair and revenge, rather than any real hope of victory. They had seen Aslan defeat the Witch, after all. Surely they couldn't think they could still take Narnia back?

While Edmund's forces were pulling back, the Rebels continued to press them. As one group of Fauns and Dwarfs retreated, a Dog turned (foolishly or bravely, Edmund couldn't decide) to face a Cyclops that was in pursuit. As soon as it came within range, however, the Cyclops swung a great spiked club, and took the head off the Dog. Edmund swallowed, and another Dog nearby sent up a great howl.

"Archers!" Susan cried from behind him. "One flight, mid-range, on my line. Notch! Draw! Release!" A flight of arrows flew raggedly overhead, and fell amongst a group of Rebels approaching from the northeast, mostly Hags and Werewolves. Two of them fell, and several others roared in outrage. "Again!" shouted Susan, and another flight of arrows swept past, but fewer this time.

A large group of Rebels had gathered, just out of arrow range, in the middle of the meadow. All of the loyal Narnian fighters had pulled back now, or were injured and trapped somewhere in the field. A long-legged Cheetah stood next to Edmund, a low throaty growl quivering her whiskers. Beyond her was a Dwarf, wearing a Fisher around his shoulders like a stole, both of them covered in mud.

"Give it up, Boy!" shouted someone on Edmund's left, and he glanced over to see Bruno, his great bulk looming over Dwarfs, Fauns, and Cats. "We're beaten!" said the Grizzly, waving a bloody paw at the battlefield. "We've lost, it's time to go!"

Edmund stared: Bruno's legs were caked in mud, and blood dripped from his enormous claws. But instead of digging in, getting ready to resist the Rebels' final charge, the Grizzly was swinging his heavy head around to the rear.

"No!" cried Edmund. "No, you can't, we have to-we need you!"

But the Grizzly sneered at him. "I'm not going to die for some bloody Human's mistakes-you won't take me for that kind of fool!" Bruno dropped down to all four legs and pushed his way through the second line of fighters, forcing his way towards the back of the company.

"Coward!" yelled Edmund. But the Grizzly was gone: within moments he had disappeared from sight.

The Stag who was Bruno's second-in-command stared after him, and then looked back at Edmund, clearly uncertain. Half a dozen other members of the Patrol were gathered behind him, also looking undecided. Edmund hesitated, unsure what he could say: how could he get them to stay, to hold off the Rebels, when indeed they might all die?

Fraxinus looked up from where he was sharpening a long knife, apparently unconcerned about their looming fate. "You claim you fight for Narnia!" he challenged the Stag, who, startled, tossed his antlers.

"Yes, we do!" the Stag replied.

Fraxinus lifted an eyebrow, although Edmund doubted anyone other than he could see it, the Faun's face was covered with so much dirt and blood. "Then now's your chance to prove it!" He pointed with his blade across the meadow. The large group of Rebels were approaching, Minotaurs and Cyclops in the lead, and then they were moving faster and faster, clearly planning to break through the Narnian line.

"Brace yourselves!" bellowed Edmund to the entire company, and hunkered down, wishing desperately for a shield. The Stag and his companions brought themselves into the line at Edmund's left, filling the hole left by Bruno's departure. The Stag dropped his head so the tines of his antlers were at chest-height to a Faun or a Man (if not a Dwarf). The rest of the company did likewise, raising weapons and digging in their feet as best they could in the churned and muddy soil.

The Rebels came with appalling speed, their feet and hooves hammering on the ground, splattering mud (and blood) all over as they charged. Maybe we should just let them through, realized Edmund, but there was no time for second thoughts, as the Rebels hit the Narnian line like a cannonball against a wooden palisade.

They broke through, of course. Even with the Stag and Spearfast the Centaur anchoring one end of the Narnian line, they just didn't have the mass to withstand that charge, and the Narnians fell back, were brushed aside, or were simply overridden by the Rebels' assault. The center, inevitably, gave way, and the Minotaurs and Cyclops charged through, heading for the archers.

Edmund had been knocked down by a Cyclops' swinging fist; his head rang, but he struggled to his feet in time to meet the smaller Rebels swarming in on the heels of the heavyweights. He stabbed a Hag in the belly and her scream nearly deafened him: he was still tugging his sword out when something slammed into his back with such force that he was thrown back down to the ground.

There was a fierce growl from above him, matched by an equally fierce snarl, and then the weight on his back was suddenly gone. "King? King, are you all right?"

Edmund put his left hand on the Hag's body and pushed himself over. At least he had not sliced himself open on his own sword, although it was a near thing. A bloody muzzle sniffed at him, wrinkling, and he realized it was Rhea who was standing over him, looking worried. Behind her, Fraxinus was fencing (brilliantly) with an enormous Goblin.

"I'm fine," Edmund managed, still trying to catch his breath. It took him two tries to get up, and the second time he had to duck as an Ogre lunged for him. It would have caught him, too, if Rhea hadn't sunk her teeth in its arm. It howled and swung its mace at her, but she dodged it nimbly, and sliced open its other arm. Given that useful a distraction, Edmund felt constrained to take advantage, and managed to hamstring the creature while its back was turned. It fell hard, spraying bloody mud all around.

"Well enough," said Rhea, over the writhing body of the Ogre. "But come! Your sister needs you-" And she turned and dashed away, to where the archers had been stationed, at the top of the rise.

Edmund followed her, ducking and weaving around knots of fighting. He couldn't tell how they were doing, but it didn't look good. How could generals in England possibly keep track of their own battles? It was all a great confusion.

The archers had been hit hard, were still being hit, although several had fled into the nearby woods, followed by Hags and Werewolves. The rest were at the center of a roiling mob of fighters: Minotaurs, Cyclopses and Ogres, struggling with Dwarfs and Fauns and Dogs and Beasts of various types. The noise was unspeakable, and somewhere in there was Susan, with only a knife and Peter's leather jerkin to protect her.

Edmund looked around desperately, but there was no help. The Narnian line had broken, and aside from the melee on the rise, his forces were dispersed and scattered. Fraxinus had killed his Goblin but was now being forced back by two Hags and a Minotaur, his face bloody and one arm hanging loose. The Stag was being harried by two Wolves and a Werewolf, surrounded on all sides by bloody snarls and snapping teeth. As Edmund stood there, frozen with horrified indecision, one of the Ogres in the closest knot of fighters lurched backwards, and threw something over his shoulder, like a laborer chucking a bit of rubbish out of his way.

It landed at Edmund's feet. But it wasn't trash: it was the Fisher he had seen earlier, now crumpled and broken.

They had lost.

Edmund had not believed it could happen, not truly. Aslan had defeated the Witch, and Susan had saved the Dwarfs, and they were building a new Narnia, bringing people together. It couldn't end this way. Aslan surely didn't mean it to end this way. But Aslan had given over command of Narnia to schoolchildren who had no idea what they were doing, and Narnia was falling apart again.

"King!" snapped Rhea at his elbow, and Edmund wheeled around. "This way!" She had found an opening in the knot of fighting, and thrust herself into it. It was no struggle at all to follow her, because fighting his way to Susan, and maybe dying in the attempt, was better than watching his little army collapse and die around him.

The melee was madness, as tightly-packed as the London Underground, mud slick underfoot and everywhere weapons, claws, teeth flashing and striking. Edmund stayed as low as he could, because he wasn't heavy enough to do any damage in these close quarters and there was no room for his sword. He drew his dagger with his left hand as he struggled past a Wolverine wrestling with a Dog, and was nearly knocked off his feet by the stench from a Hag being strangled by a Faun.

Rhea's tail was his guide through the mad scene, as though she knew where she was going. At last (although it was less than a minute after entering the melee) she stopped, and nosed at a figure on the ground, sprawled at the feet of another Cheetah. Edmund was pretty sure she said something to him, but he couldn't hear it in all the noise; he didn't need to, anyway.

Because it was Susan on the ground, her face very white and her side covered with blood.

The sound of the battle around him was suddenly very far away, attenuated as though echoing down a railway tunnel. Edmund could hear the blood pounding in his own head, though, and feel the slick warmth of Susan's blood on his hands as he opened her jerkin and tunic and tried to stop the bleeding. She had a deep gash in her side, narrow like a sword blade had made it, and the blood pulsed from it regularly. It wasn't spurting, which Edmund suspected was good, but it wasn't stopping, either.

He couldn't use his tunic as a bandage without taking off his own cuirass; his blood-wet hands slipped on the buckles and he snarled with frustration.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Aslan had named them kings and queens, set them on the thrones of Cair Paravel, had died to save Edmund. Susan wasn't supposed to die in the mud of an unnamed field because Edmund had buggered up his first real command. Firefoot had died, the Fisher had died, but this was Susan, his sister. He refused to let it happen.

The buckles finally came loose: Edmund tore the cuirass off and wrenched at his tunic. It needed to be clean, he remembered that much. Not that there was any part of his clothing that was clean, but at least he could use something that wasn't covered in mud or someone else's blood.

"King!" shouted Rhea in his ear, and he snarled back without looking away from his filthy hands tearing at his tunic, "Leave me alone!"

"No, you must look!" cried Rhea, and put her foot on his hand. She had enormous feet, broad with sharp claws, now coated with mud. "Look!" She took his shoulder in her mouth and tugged him sideways, forcing him around.

The sounds of the battle around them had changed. Instead of grunts and shouts and the clang of weapons, Edmund heard-and felt-a rhythmic pounding thunder. The vibration, as of a herd of buffalo stampeding across a plain, came up through his feet and rattled his ribcage. Above that noise, came shouts and cries of surprise-and fear.

The Hag, just a few feet away, tore loose from the Faun and scrambled backwards, diving into a nearby copse of brimbleberry bushes. Her escape left an opening through which, even kneeling, Edmund could see most of the battlefield.

It had only been a few moments since Edmund had fallen to his knees next to Susan, and yet everything had changed. Instead of a crowd of deformed and vicious Rebels sweeping across the field, chasing the broken Narnian forces, Edmund saw dozens of Centaurs crashing through the Rebels' lines. They came from the north, and their stone spear-points glittered as they charged, chanting Aslan's name, throwing up bloody clods of turf like a child splashing in a mud puddle.

"Oh," said Edmund, and watched as the Minotaur who had been leading the charge against the Narnians was felled in an instant by a stocky roan mare wielding a spear and a long-bladed knife. As the Minotaur collapsed, she did not pause before turning and launching herself at the Cyclops nearest Edmund. The swing of her bound hair was what jogged his memory, and he knew her, then. Silversharp, the weapons-master.

Which at least gave him some warning (if not a great deal), so that a moment later he was not quite as surprised as he might have been to find himself confronted with great stamping hooves and the carved and painted butt of a long spear. He looked up.

A dark-skinned Centaur with ragged untamed hair met his gaze with a nod. "King Edmund," he said, voice deep. "I would wish we had come in better time."

Edmund knew he needed to say something. He looked at Susan, and then back up at the Centaur. "Stormcoat," he said, finally, his voice cracked and dry, "I need-can you help my sister?"

"I will do all that I can," said Stormcoat, and turned to wave at someone. "A healer here, quickly! The queen is injured!"

Edmund looked back at Susan. She breathed shallowly, a frown etched into her forehead and one hand still clutching her bow. The bow was bloodied at the ends, as though she had been using it as a weapon, and the string hung free, broken or cut at some point in the battle. He could not see her dagger-it must have been lost in the fight. Not three feet away lay another body: a Dwarf, collapsed onto his face with a short sword in his hand. It might have been him that struck her down.

Something nagged at the edge of his attention; Edmund was forgetting something.

A Centaur mare lowered herself to the ground next to him, and unfolded a brightly-colored woven bag to reveal small bottles of liquid, clean cloths, and sharp stone tools. She murmured, "Oh, that does not look good," and gently shifted Edmund to the side so she could examine Susan's wound.

"The cordial, king," said Rhea. "Do you have the cordial?"

The cordial! Edmund surged to his feet. He staggered, as his legs suddenly seemed too weak to support him, but Rhea let him lean against her until he regained his balance. The mare kept working on Susan, not looking up. "I need the Eagle," Edmund said, and gazed around distractedly. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," said Rhea. "But look, here is Fraxinus, he can call her."

Fraxinus looked nearly as bad as Susan did, although he was still on his feet, barely. He swayed dangerously, but Edmund had only to mention the Eagle once before Fraxinus again brought out his little pipe. Edmund propped him up while he played it, and then carefully let him down next to Susan.

"Will she be all right?" Edmund had to ask the Centaur physician, who was carefully cleaning away the mud and blood from Susan's injury.

"She is very badly hurt," said the physician, without looking up. "But she will not die under my hands."

Wings flapped behind him, and Edmund turned to see the Eagle, settling awkwardly to the ground next to Fraxinus. "Yes, what is it? I am not a Dog, to come at a whistle!"

Edmund bit back the urge to snap at the bird. Susan's injury was not her fault, after all. "I need your help, good Eagle. Can you fly to the Witch's castle and find my sister Lucy? Tell her we need her cordial desperately."

The Eagle ruffled her feathers uncomfortably. "The Witch's castle? Are you sure? That's a terrible place. I could go somewhere else instead..."

Rhea growled and took one pace forward.

The Eagle jumped backwards, looking rather less noble than she doubtless intended. "Or I could go to the Witch's castle, which I'm sure is perfectly safe since the Witch is dead, of course. Find Lucy, get her cordial, and...?" She cocked her head sideways.

"Bring it back," ground out Edmund through clenched teeth. "As fast as you can."

"Well, all right! No need to snarl at me!" The Eagle leaped into the air; the downdraft of her great wings nearly knocked Edmund sideways. She was out of sight very quickly, disappearing over the ridge to the east, flying straight and fast.

Edmund looked around then, feeling as though he were supposed to do something but not quite sure what. His brain felt thick and slow and he wondered if he'd been hit on the head without knowing it. Around him, Centaurs were herding prisoners into the center of the meadow, binding the wounds of the injured, and tending to the dead. Nearby, Stormcoat spoke with Silversharp, who had not yet cleaned her weapons. Edmund did not see Bruno anywhere; he suspected the Grizzly was halfway back to the Witch's castle.

"King," said Rhea quietly. "While we wait for the cordial, there are other wounded, as well. And your sister is in good hands."

Edmund stared at her for the long moments it took her words to sink in. "Oh," he said finally. "Right. I see." Peter had not mentioned this as a duty of commanders, and Edmund wondered what else he had missed while he slept after the end of the battle with the Witch. He found it easy to imagine his brother talking with the wounded, holding someone's hand as they were treated, and cheering them up despite their pain just by listening to them. Edmund cringed inside-he was not Peter, after all-but then he thought about Firefoot. He could do no less for these than he had for the Centaur foal.

The next minutes were something of a blur: soft voices and moans and cries of pain; the smell of blood, and mud, and worse things; grasping hands (or paws), the feel of wet fur, and the tacky sensation of blood on Edmund's hands. Too many were already dead, and too many more were past any help the Centaurs could provide. But many were merely hurt, and they would soon be walking again, making their way home to tell the story of Stormcoat's Charge and the breaking of the last remnant of the Witch's forces in Narnia. (Edmund hoped for all their sakes that it was in fact the last remnant and not the start of some long-running conflict that would exhaust them all.) They spoke to him with cheer and pride in their voices, talking of their deeds in the battle, or (more frequently) their homes and their families, and everything they meant to do now that the Winter was over.

It was that purpose, that cheer, that lifted Edmund from his fog in the end. He stood up at length from beside a Dwarf who had taken a bad knock to the head and seemed confused by the sun and warmth around him: the fellow had forgotten everything that had happened since some time before Aslan broke the Winter. As he turned away, already looking ahead for the next injured soldier, there was a cry overhead.

The Eagle was back, and in one of her clawed feet she clutched a small crystal vial.


The first thing Susan noticed was that she didn't hurt. The last thing she remembered was the pain, and the warmth on her skin as the blood flowed down her side, soaking her clothes. Now, though, she didn't hurt, not even a little. What had happened?

The battle had not been going well, she remembered that much. Maybe they had lost, and she was dead, and what did that mean? Was she in Aslan's Country, or in the heaven the vicar talked about? Edmund and Peter and Lucy would be so sad, and how would they tell their family? Would they ever return to England at all? She thought of the Professor's face as they talked about Lucy, and decided he would not be surprised at their disappearance.

But their parents would not take it nearly so well, and Susan swallowed as she pictured her mother's face, grieving for her children. And then realized that she had swallowed. Her eyes flew open.

She was on her back, because the cloud-spotted sky was above her and there was a small stone poking into her shoulder. Voices rang in the air, but they were no longer shouting battle-cries, just giving orders and asking questions. She moved her left hand, and touched the cold and crusty spot on her tunic where her blood had dried. It had happened, then, the Dwarf seizing her and the blade going into her side, so smoothly, and coming out with so much pain-but she was alive after all. And there was a taste lingering in her mouth that reminded her of the smell of Aslan's mane, and the sunlight of the morning he had risen from the Stone Table.

"Lucy?" she asked then. Her voice didn't seem to work, and she swallowed and tried again. "Lucy?"

"Su!" Edmund's face appeared, bending over her. He was filthy with mud and blood, his leather jerkin hanging half-open and his helmet missing entirely. He smiled at her, and then looked away to the right, saying to someone out of sight, "She's awake!"

A Centaur mare bent low over her, and helped Susan sit up. "How do you feel, queen?"

"I'm all right," said Susan, looking around. There were Centaurs everywhere. It was late afternoon: the sun was just above the mountains, and a cool breeze ruffled the leaves of the brimbleberry bushes. She could not have been unconscious for very long, but everything had changed. "What happened?" she asked Edmund.

He grimaced, then nodded towards the middle of the meadow, where many people were gathered. "Stormcoat came," he said. "They drove off the Rebels, and I sent the Eagle to Lucy for her cordial."

"Oh," said Susan, and gave Edmund her hand so he could pull her up. He grunted a bit: Susan eyed him suspiciously. It would be just like Edmund to be injured and not mention it to anyone. But he didn't seem to be limping, so she left it alone for now.

Standing, she picked up her bow and quiver. The bow was bloodstained and sticky under her hands: she remembered using it as a club at the end, after her quiver had run empty and she'd lost her knife. It wasn't a pleasant memory: she pushed away the rage and terror she had felt, and tried to focus on where she was now, alive and whole. She wiped her hand on Edmund's tunic, but it didn't make much difference, and he didn't even notice.

He glanced at her and then looked away. "I wasn't sure what to do," he said, "but we had the cordial, and so many people were hurt..."

Susan frowned in confusion and followed his gaze to the Centaur physician, who was examining a young Faun. There seemed very few serious injuries in the people around them. "Oh," she said. "Well, I think you had to. I think it would be selfish of us to keep it for ourselves."

He brightened, surprisingly; Edmund didn't usually admit he cared what she thought. "I didn't use too much, and I had Brightblade show me the ones who wouldn't heal without help."

"It's what Lucy did after the first battle," she confirmed. She stood a moment, looking out over the battlefield. A group of Rebels were seated in a group, many of them bound, many of them injured; they were guarded by some of the younger Centaurs. Susan thought she saw Windcaller among them, and lifted a hand: he nodded to her, but did not take his hands off his spear. "What about the prisoners?" she asked Edmund. "Did you heal any of them?"

He looked at her blankly, and then flushed. "It, uh, didn't occur to me. Do you think we should?"

It would be easy to say, "No," because of course it was such a tiny bottle, and they were likely to need it again and again, she thought. Narnia was wonderful, but it wasn't safe. And yet the cordial was, in some way Susan could not quite explain, a part of Aslan-the magic of healing was the touch of Aslan or even his father the Emperor-Over-Sea. Who was she to deny that to anyone, even Hags and Werewolves who had tried to kill her? But she could not come up with a way to say that to Edmund. So instead, she said, "I think we must. They are Narnians, too, and we were not made kings and queens of only the friendly part of Narnia."

Edmund frowned at her. "You didn't see what they-" he began, and then stopped. His eyes were dark, and he looked away, across the field where, Susan saw, Centaurs and a few Dryads were piling wood. "That's a lot to ask," he said at last, reluctantly. "But you're right."

He bowed his head, and she put her hand on the back of his neck. Like the rest of him, it was sticky with dirt and sweat. "Aslan doesn't only ask us to do the easy things," she said, and then flushed, thinking about her conversation with Rhea in the wood. "I'll do it, if you'd rather not."

"Would you?" he asked, looking up. His eyes looked damp, and she wondered what he had seen, and then decided she didn't want to know. "I'll, ah-" He looked around uncertainly, and Susan laughed.

"Maybe you should clean up," she said. "Anyone who meets you like that won't believe you're a king."


The prisoners did not look at her as she approached them with the cordial in her hand: most of them stared sullenly at the ground, a few of them tugging at their bonds while they glared at Windcaller and the other Centaur guards.

"Queen," Windcaller greeted her. "It is good to see you." He looked unharmed except for a scratch on his shoulder, although there were bloodstains on his leather breastplate.

"And you, Windcaller," Susan replied. "I have come to see the wounded prisoners. Are there any here who are in great pain, or who are beyond the help of any physician?"

She did not bother to keep her voice low, and several of the prisoners overheard the question. One of them, a red-haired Dwarf with a gash above one eye, laughed harshly. "And what'll you do with us, then, if we're no use to you? Feed us to those Cats of yours?"

Susan looked at the Dwarf, then back at Windcaller. "Lend me your knife?" she asked, and he lifted an eyebrow, but drew the stone blade and handed it to her, hilt-first. She crossed the little distance and dropped to an easy squat in front of the Dwarf, keeping the blade unsheathed in her hand. She was not so foolish as to give the Witch's people another chance to kill her.

Sometimes she forgot how small Dwarfs were, because she had few other Humans to compare them to. But even squatting, she towered over the seated Dwarf. She looked him over. He was poorly dressed, in ragged clothing and a mail shirt that was more rust than steel. In addition to the gash on his forehead, he had one hand wrapped in a bit of stained cloth, and his hair was matted with blood and mud. "You know better than to believe that," she said. "And you would have to be much cleaner to appeal to the Cats, for they are indeed picky eaters, as all Narnia knows."

That startled a laugh out of one of the Dwarf's companions, a Goblin with his hands bound before him. Promising, she thought. But the Dwarf just glowered. "What is your name?" Susan asked him.

He sneered, but she waited, and he said, "Bindle."

"My name is Susan," she said in return. "Are you badly injured, Bindle?"

He stirred uncomfortably and looked at the Goblin, who just shrugged, and then down at the ground. Susan eased herself back and sat cross-legged. She waited. "My hand," said Bindle, and raised his bound hands together. "One of them stepped on it," he went on, shooting a vicious look at Windcaller (who nobly ignored him).

"Why did you keep fighting, after the Witch was killed?" Susan asked him. "Why keep killing?" She did not want to say anything about healing cordials yet: she wanted the truth, unaffected by gratitude or special pleading. And it was important to understand why the fighting was still going on, if they had any hope of stopping it.

"She en't dead!" protested the Goblin, his ears flopping. "She's the Empress, Empresses don't die!"

Susan raised an eyebrow and looked at Bindle. "I saw her body," she said. "But I can't force you to believe me."

Bindle shook his head. The last rays of the setting sun struck fire from his red hair, but even that warm light could not disguise the grey tone in his skin: Susan suspected he was in a great deal of pain. "Wasn't anything else to do," he said, face set in a scowl. "We have to defend ourselves, and that Lion, we killed him, didn't we? Nobody lets that go."

"And if we were to let it go?" She did not think she could speak for Aslan, but if peace in Narnia meant forgiving the Witch's soldiers, Susan would make it happen.

"Fah!" spat the Dwarf. "We know better than to trust you lot. Traitors and thieves, turning on the Queen after she'd fed and trained them all! Just because that Lion came and gave them that shiny armor and banners and all. And you-you Humans are all the same, trying to take Narnia away from us rightful owners." He scowled at her again, and spat on the ground. "Humans!" he closed with, as though it were an insult.

Susan pondered that for a moment, then shrugged. "That doesn't make any sense, you know," she said, and set the cordial on the ground next to her. "But it doesn't matter. Give me your hand, please."

He looked like he would have refused, but Windcaller stepped closer and lowered his spearpoint six inches. So Bindle held out his hands, and Susan cut through the bindings with a single stroke. Then she set the knife aside and carefully unwound the wrapping, ignoring Bindle's muffled whimper as she jarred his hand. Exposed, it was ugly and swollen, with many broken bones. Perhaps in England his mobility could be saved, but Susan suspected that this was beyond even the Centaurs' medicine to heal. She took up the cordial and hesitated for a moment: need it be swallowed? He might think she was trying to poison him, and if he struggled she could spill it.

So with a silent plea to Aslan (Please make this work), she tilted the vial and let a single drop fall on the Dwarf's twisted hand. The smell was heavenly: it smelled like Spring come again, even here in the muck. And then the smell was gone, and Susan looked at Bindle's hand to see it healed. Perfect in form, shapely and strong as it had been before the battle ever started.

"There," she said, and ignoring the Dwarf's open-mouthed astonishment, pushed herself to her feet to find the next patient. She had a lot of work to do.


She found Edmund after dark, sitting next to a fire on the rise where she had fallen in battle, in deep conversation with Stormcoat and Silversharp. Fraxinus was with them as well, although more than half his attention was on the stewpot balanced precariously at the edge of the fire. Susan couldn't tell what was in it, and didn't much care, so long as it was edible: she was famished.

"Su," said Edmund, and shifted over on his log so she could squeeze in closer to the fire. It was still summertime, but the night had a touch of chill in it nonetheless, and Susan suspected they would see some leaves turning colors soon. "Where were you?" Edmund asked, as Fraxinus spooned out something mushy into a wooden bowl and handed it to her.

Susan looked at her bowl dubiously and took a bite, swallowing the nearly-tasteless mash before answering. "With the prisoners," she said, nodding towards the three fires in the center of the battlefield, where the prisoners were being kept under guard. "I healed some of them, and spoke to most."

"Indeed. That was well done, queen," rumbled Stormcoat.

Susan flushed at the praise. "We need to understand," she said, and took another bite of mash. "How can we make peace if we don't know what everyone wants?"

"What is there to know?" asked Fraxinus, with an edge in his voice. "They hate Aslan and they want to kill us all. How can you want to make peace with that?" The Faun was healed from his wounds but he still looked angry. Susan remembered him being in the thick of the fighting, even in the battle with the Witch herself.

Edmund raised a hand, and Fraxinus subsided. "Peace or war," Edmund said, "Susan's right. We need to understand in order to protect ourselves. What did you learn?" he asked Susan.

"That there are as many reasons for fighting as there are stars in the sky," she said with a sigh. "But most of them involve fear."

"Fear of what? They nearly beat us!" Edmund exclaimed.

"But they did not, because you are binding Narnia to you," answered Stormcoat, and Susan nodded.

"I think that is some of it. They are losing-or have lost, and they were the Witch's people: they served her, profited under her, enforced her decrees. They were the schoolyard bullies, and now their victims are in charge, and they're terrified they'll receive just what they dished out."

Edmund nodded at that, and she knew he was thinking of his own troubles at school. "And that's why they won't surrender, because they don't believe in forgiveness-they wouldn't have forgiven themselves, after all." His voice was almost emotionless; Susan shifted sideways to press against him. His sword hilt jabbed into her side, but she felt the tension in his body ease.

They sat for a moment, thinking, as the fire crackled and Susan finished her now-cool mash. She handed the bowl back to Fraxinus with a quiet "Thank you," and propped her head on her knee to watch the flames.

Stormcoat stirred, his long tail whipping once and hissing against a tree branch. "What shall you do, then?"

Susan swiveled her head to see Edmund's face. He looked as uncertain as she felt. "I know what I want to do," he said at last, "but I can't make the decision on my own."

Which was almost exactly what Susan was thinking. She sat up. "There are only thirty prisoners or so," she said, and looked at Edmund.

"So?"

She sighed. "So with Stormcoat and his people here, we have enough soldiers to guard them. We can take them to Peter to make a decision."

"We were supposed to meet him at the Castle anyway," Edmund said. "Think he'll mind if we show up with thirty cranky Dwarfs and Ogres?"

"I think he would mind more if you let them loose to wander the countryside," said Stormcoat dryly.


Even the bird-song was muffled in the misty pre-dawn morning. Narnia's stars, so much larger and brighter than England's, were paling, and a faint green light crept up the eastern sky. Susan shuffled her feet, toes curling cold inside her boots, and rubbed her hands on her arms.

Beside her, Edmund puffed with effort as he drew the tiny bow back and forth, drilling into the wood. Fraxinus looked on from Edmund's other side, and grunted once (in approval or discontent, Susan couldn't tell).

Around them, people were gathered, standing silent in the clearing; in the darkness they were just odd-shaped shadows, no two the same size. But for all the chill in the air (and again Susan wondered about the turn in the weather: how soon would Autumn come? Would they be ready for it?), they stood quietly, even contemplatively. Well, mostly quietly: one of the Centaurs stamped, and was hushed by Silversharp.

A spark, at last, sprang from the end of the drill: a flicker of light in the darkness. And another, alighting in the shavings and punk Edmund and Fraxinus had gathered. Edmund didn't speak yet, but gathered tinder, feeding it to the tiny fire until it was a fist-size flame, burning merrily in a copper bowl chased with the same runes Susan had seen on the Stone Table.

"Now, king," said Fraxinus quietly, and Edmund stood up, balancing the bowl between his palms. He went to step forward, and then stopped, and turned toward Susan.

"I think..." he said, and extended the bowl towards her.

Susan caught her breath, nodded, and lifted her hand to take hold of it. Thus, carrying the fire between them, they stepped forward towards the pyre.

The dryads had worked through the night, bringing wood and stacking it just so; the Centaurs had laid the dead among the logs, washed and wrapped and limbs straightened: gathered in, in whichever way was appropriate for their people. The two great Cats were curled tight like house cats on a pillow; the Dwarfs all faced their beloved earth; the five Fauns each had given up a horn to a comrade-in-arms before being laid with their heads toward the rising sun. Even the Goblins had their right hands bound to their left shoulders in the ancient tribal salute.

The sun was just about to rise. Susan and Edmund paced once, twice, three steps, and then stopped. "How do we light it?" Susan asked in a whisper, her face flushing. She had not realized she had a role in this, and had slept while Edmund conferred with Fraxinus and Stormcoat about the ceremony.

"Torch on your right," hissed Edmund. "Light it from the bowl."

The pyre climbed high before them: too many dead to count, and Susan wondered what had happened to the dead after the first battle. They had been carried away to Cair Paravel without a thought, afterwards. Surely the bodies did not still lie on that plain, skin withering in the summer sun? Surely not.

She made sure Edmund had the copper bowl firmly in his hand, and reached for the torch. It was lighter than it looked: a length of dry oak bound at one end with pitch and grasses. She raised it to the crowd around them (it seemed the right thing to do) and lowered it to the bowl.

There was a crackle, and then fire sprang up in a bright crown at the top of the torch. Susan lifted it again to the crowd. Edmund stepped away for a moment, and then touched another torch to hers. In the flickering light, his face was pale and set. He looked away, over her shoulder, and shook his head. "Not yet," he said.

They stood there, holding the burning torches, watching the horizon, until at length a single ray of light came over the hills to the east to touch the treetops around them. "Now," said Edmund, and began to pace clockwise around the pyre.

Susan turned and walked slowly counter-clockwise, and at every step she touched the torch to the bundles of tinder and kindling in the pyre, stacked under and around the (too many) Narnian dead. At the south end she saw the Cyclops' body, and caught her breath in a gasp, but did not shame herself. She recovered, lit the bundle with the torch, and went on.

By the time she met Edmund again where they had started, the fire was beginning to spread throughout the pyre, crackling and snapping. It was no longer quiet in the clearing, and it was quite uncomfortable so close to the flames.

Edmund led her away from the pyre, still walking slowly and ceremonially, and finally stopped where it seemed that everyone could see him. "We send our brothers and sisters to Aslan's Country, with honor and love," he said. "May they find rich grazing, good hunting, fertile soil, and the peace he promises us. Honor and peace to them all."

"Honor and peace to them all," said the company, and with that Edmund and Susan reversed their torches, extinguishing them in the damp earth.

They left the pyre burning behind them, tended by three of Stormcoat's Centaurs and one of the Goblin prisoners (Goblins have specific requirements for their dead that other peoples find disturbing), as they struck camp and headed back south and east towards the Witch's castle. Susan was glad to put the battlefield behind them, but the smell of the pyre followed them for some miles until the wind changed in mid-morning.

Armies, even small ones, travel slowly, and armies burdened with prisoners even more slowly. So it was no surprise that Rhea met them at mid-day near Tumnus' cave, returning from the Witch's castle with word from Peter and Lucy.

"Well?" demanded Edmund, as the Wolf fell into step with them, near the head of the line. They were at least out of the forest and into more open country now, and could spread out a bit; Susan had been uncomfortable at how they had been strung along in a long line. That was, after all, how they had been caught off-guard yesterday.

Was it only yesterday? Astonishing.

"They are both well," said Rhea, with a sly flick of her ears. "The Castle is taken, with no losses. They were naturally concerned about you, queen," she said, looking at Susan, "after the Eagle's garbled message, but I was able to reassure them."

"Next time, I'll send a Magpie along," promised Edmund.

"Anything else?" Susan asked.

Rhea's hackles ruffled, and she dropped her voice. "Your brother is unsettled. By what, he did not say, but I think they made some disturbing discoveries in the castle."

Susan wasn't surprised, although it wasn't something she had thought about, either. But the castle had been the Witch's home, and her prison as well. She didn't like to think what it was they had found-had there still been prisoners locked away? How horrible!

"He'll tell us when we get there," said Edmund, frowning.

"No doubt," said Rhea, and glided away to greet Stormcoat.

They walked on for some distance, following the advance guard, a squad of Fraxinus' Fauns and two young Centaurs. In the distance a scout came cantering out of the trees. Over breakfast, Stormcoat had had a long talk with Edmund about battle array and things like that. Edmund's face had turned purple once or twice, but he hadn't stomped off the way he used to when Peter dressed him down, so Susan decided it went all right.

"I don't like being separated like this," she said, as they approached the trees. "I worried about Lucy all day yesterday."

"That's odd," said Edmund, thoughtfully. "I didn't."

Susan scowled. "Edmund-!"

He waved a hand at her as he stepped over a fallen log. "Not like that, Su. Just-I can't say how, it's like I just knew she was all right. When I thought about her, I wasn't worrying."

"Well, I worried," said Susan. She stepped over the log too, and adjusted her bow so it hung more evenly. "But-but I wasn't worried this morning." She touched Edmund's shoulder, and he glanced back at her with an inquiring look. "Why wasn't I worried about Lucy this morning?"

"Because she was all right," he answered.

Susan rolled her eyes. "Yes, but how did we know that?"

Edmund just shrugged, and then put out a hand as a Stag came cantering up. He stuttered to a halt in front of them, dust puffing in small clouds about his cloven hooves. "Yes, king?" he asked, and Susan recognized him as one of Bruno's people. She suspected that nobody had yet told him that the Witch's castle was no longer in the hands of the Western Narnian Patrol, and wondered if that was Edmund's intent.

"Walk with us," invited Edmund, and the Stag tossed his head, but willingly swung his long body into line on Edmund's right. Susan saw Fraxinus, behind them, glower, but he said nothing.

Edmund didn't say anything for a few paces, so Susan spoke first. "What's your name? I'm Susan, and of course this is Edmund."

"Oh, I know," said the Stag, nodding his heavy head. "I'm Elmshadow of Cauldron Pool, but I mostly grew up in the Western Wild."

"You're not the only one who did, I think," said Edmund casually.

The Stag, who was a fine specimen, with more flesh and a healthier shine to his coat than most of the grazing animals Susan had seen in Narnia, shook his head so his antlers flashed in the afternoon light. "Well, no; we had to eat, and you get summer there, and food is much easier to find. But it was lonely. There are few Talking Beasts in the Western Wild, and it is hard country. My parents told me stories about Narnia, about the festivals and long warm summers, that their parents had told them. It sounded wonderful, like a dream."

"And what happened when you came to Narnia, came back I mean?" Susan urged, when Elmshadow stopped talking.

He pawed at the ground, looking uncomfortable. "It wasn't like they'd said it was. Everyone was hungry, and there wasn't much food. Nobody would talk to me, and I didn't know anyone. It wasn't like Nini had said it would be, at all."

Is it ever? thought Susan. "And so you joined the Patrol?"

The Stag's ears dropped and then came back up: Susan realized this was a deer equivalent of a shrug. "They had food, and a plan. They seemed organized, like they knew what was going on."

"And what did you do for the Patrol?" asked Edmund, again quite casually. Elmshadow was officially still their ally; they didn't want to frighten him off if they could avoid it. But it would be best to settle the question before they arrived at the Witch's castle.

"Oh, not much," Elmshadow said, looking shifty. Susan wasn't sure how she knew the Stag was dodging the question, but she knew he was. One more Narnian lesson: how to read the body-language of Talking Beasts. "Guarded the castle, that sort of thing." He was probably muscle, Susan decided, for when the Patrol threatened the locals: with his size and broad spread of antlers, he would pose quite a threat to most of the woodland population.

"Guarded it from whom?" Edmund asked, and stepped over another log across the trail. "Isn't the Patrol protecting the local Narnians?"

"Some of them don't understand that we're here to protect them," said the Stag, with a borrowed earnestness. "They tried to steal supplies, and Bruno couldn't allow that."

"Supplies? What supplies?" asked Susan.

Now Elmshadow looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I don't really know. Some food, I think, and there were lots of boxes in some of the rooms. Bruno would trade some of it, sometimes."

Bruno, who had abandoned his people on the battlefield, and run away when it seemed that they were going to lose. One of the Dogs had followed his trail for some distance, after the battle was over; she'd come back covered with burrs to report that the Grizzly had headed west into the mountains. If they were very lucky, perhaps he would stay there (but Susan rather doubted it).

"What did he trade for?" Susan asked. She hoped they would reach the castle soon; she was very tired, and still sore from the battle, though her wounds were healed. She wanted to sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and sleep in a bed. Except she knew there would be no tea, and dinner would be mushy stew again, and they would sleep on the ground. Again. (Not that she would ever complain out loud: she knew that much about being a queen, after all.)

In any event, this also was important: talking to Elmshadow, learning about the Patrol. Turning the Patrol, really, if they could.

"I don't know," said Elmshadow, and now he looked genuinely unhappy. He tossed his head a few times, and finally burst out: "Bruno said that he was protecting us, that-that Aslan wasn't going to look after us, and we had to do it ourselves. He said that the stories about the new kings and queens were just, just stories."

And you believed him, thought Susan, because why shouldn't you? We hadn't done anything to prove ourselves, after all. Which wasn't entirely true, she knew: they had helped defeat the Witch, and that had not been solely Aslan's work-she'd heard Edmund and Lucy talking about the Deep Magic, and what it meant. But it was close enough to true for Bruno's purposes. Close enough to fool Narnians who hadn't seen Aslan, those who were a little naive or a lot selfish, those who wanted to take power now that the Witch was gone.

"And now?" Edmund asked, very gently. "What do you think now?"

Windcaller appeared out of a grove of trees up ahead, where the trail curled up and over a wooded ridge. "The castle is just ahead!" he cried, and cantered past to bring word to the rest of the company.

"I-" Elmshadow hesitated, and then stomped one hoof on the dusty trail. "I choose to trust Aslan," he said, firmly, and when he tossed his head this time, his antlers caught the late sun like wood polished to a glossy sheen.


The sun was swinging into the west, and although the rooms at the top of the tower were dim, the heat was stifling. Below, voices echoed in the courtyard and hallways as Torvus and the others searched through the rooms, tallying and cataloging the quite enormous amount of material the Witch had compiled. No wonder Bruno had seized the castle as soon as the opportunity presented itself: it was a treasure-trove of foodstuffs, trade goods, and raw materials, all of which could be traded or distributed for Bruno's benefit.

It was all so much that Peter was forced to wonder why the Witch had accumulated it all. She hadn't decorated the castle in gilt, or furnished it with ornate art. She hadn't filled her cupboards and chests with jewels or luxurious clothing, nor had she purchased loyalty from her subjects with largesse. In fact, she had, by all reports, gone out of her way to keep them miserable, rewarding only a very few of them with enough to keep them comfortable. It was a conundrum, and Peter longed for Susan to come help him solve it.

He shrugged and swiped his sweaty forehead against the sleeve of his shirt, before tugging open yet another heavy wooden door. This door had been hidden behind stacks of barrels and crates, and when opened, led to a small room piled with bales wrapped in rough cloth and bound with leather straps. Peter raised an eyebrow: whatever this was, it wasn't food. Was it goods shipped in, or something the Witch had planned to use for trade? The room had a familiar smell: a little musty, reminding him more than anything of his great-aunt Nell, but Peter couldn't place why it reminded him of her.

With the door ajar, there was enough light to see his way well enough. Peter stepped into the room and drew his dagger. It was the work of barely a minute to cut the leather bonds on the nearest bale and saw through the wrapping about the outside.

Some minutes later, there were shouts in the courtyard, cries of greeting and welcome. These sounds were followed by the clatter of hoofprints on the paving stones, and then the rumbling voices of Centaurs and at least one Wolf.

Peter sat on the floor under the window, in a spot where he could see the door to the storeroom. He didn't move, even when he heard his own name called. The sun moved in the sky, just enough that the light came in through the window and illuminated his filthy hand resting on his thigh. He hadn't put away the knife. He turned it over, and watched the light reflect off the blade. Sweat trickled unnoticed down his back.

"Aye, king, I think I saw your brother upstairs," said a voice clearly from the floor below. Peter didn't stir.

Quiet footsteps, softer than a Faun's clickety tread, came up the stairway, and then stopped at the doorway. "Pete!" said Edmund in surprise. "Didn't you hear us?"

Peter didn't look up from the knife. It was preferable to watch the knife than the storeroom. "I heard."

"Are you hurt?" Edmund was across the room in an instant, and on his knees, gripping Peter's arms. "What's wrong?"

Finally Peter looked up. Edmund had a black eye and had lost some hair on the side of his head, but was otherwise unharmed. He was wearing just a torn and filthy tunic over his breeches. "Lose your boots?" Peter asked.

"What?" Edmund looked down. "Oh, no, they just fell apart on the march back. I hope I can talk someone into making me more. Maybe there is some leather here we can use?" He looked around the room hopefully.

Peter nearly gagged, and he wrenched away from Edmund, stumbling to his feet.

"What? What is it?" Edmund jumped up as well, putting out a hand to support him. "Pete, are you all right?"

One hand on the wall, Peter leaned over, fighting the nausea. At length, he straightened and pointed to the storeroom with the point of his knife. "I found that," he said in explanation, and didn't turn to watch as Edmund went to investigate.

There was a long silence. Peter heard the rustling as Edmund examined the open bale, and then his brother's sharp indrawn breath as he came to the same realization Peter had. He stood without moving, leaning against the cool stone wall, until his brother came out. As Edmund crossed the ray of sunlight through the window, the light revealed fresh tear-tracks on his face.

Edmund sank down on the floor next to Peter and put his face in his hands. Peter concentrated on breathing; he was pretty sure he wouldn't vomit anymore, but he didn't want to be seen weeping, even by Ed. He was High King, and this was far from the worst thing he was going to need to handle.

"She was going to sell them," Edmund said, muffled behind his hands. "The furs."

Peter nodded. The smell, so familiar, choked him: the smell of their grandmother's treasured mink coat. She brought it out only at holidays, or in the coldest winter weather. Susan had always loved to stroke the soft fur.

But the furs in the bales weren't mink-or weren't only mink. They were spotted, striped, and parti-colored. Cheetah and Lynx, Rabbit and Wolf, Beaver and Badger. Rich and thick and lovely, so carefully cured and packaged for shipping to some far-away land, where the purchasers couldn't hope to know that the original owners had been thinking, feeling, Talking Beasts.

"Do you think Bruno knew?" Edmund asked after a moment.

Peter swallowed hard, and pushed himself away from the wall. "I hope not," he said.

"Bloody hell, Pete," said Edmund, staring at his hands in his lap. "I don't think we can tell anyone. It's too horrible."

"No," said Peter. "I don't think we can."

"Not even the girls." Edmund's face was pale and unhappy.

Shaking his head, Peter crossed the room and shut the storeroom door firmly. "We should probably tell Susan. But Lucy would ... come to think of it, I don't know what Lucy would do. She stabbed one of Bruno's Dwarfs yesterday, Ed. She was amazing."

Edmund took the change of topic as it was meant, and after wiping his face once more, put up a hand for Peter to pull him up from the floor. "She didn't kill him, did she?"

Peter put a hand on his shoulder. "No, he's fine. Listen, Ed, I didn't think-are you all right? Here, I mean?" He waved the other hand around, indicating their surroundings. Not even eight weeks ago, Edmund had been shackled in one of those cells downstairs.

"I'm OK," Edmund said, shrugging. "Just don't send me down to the dungeons." He gave Peter a smile that looked only partly forced.

"I won't, but you should know what we found there."


"Peter!" Susan's voice echoed in the small hall, where Peter was carrying one end of a heavy crate, while Torvus struggled with the other. It was full of weapons, but it had jammed in the doorway and they were on their third attempt to get it out of the castle before giving up and just taking it all out one bit at a time.

The end of the crate slipped in Peter's sweaty hands, and he grunted as a splinter dug into his thumb. "Busy here, Susan... No, turn more left, no the other left-" he directed Torvus. Finally, with a huff of satisfaction from its bearers, the crate slipped through the doorway with only an inch to spare. Peter just missed trapping his arm between the crate and the door, and followed Torvus out through the great hall and into the courtyard before dumping the crate on the cobbled ground with a crash.

"Ow," he said mildly, grinning at the Faun. "Was that the last one?"

"I think so, king," said Torvus, and then stepped out of the way as one of the Centaurs lifted the crate they had struggled with and swung it easily up to his shoulder. "Put that with the materiel, not the food," he called after the Centaur, who twitched his tail in acknowledgement.

"Peter!" said Susan again, and tugged at Peter's arm. "Come with me, you have to see this!"

"Go, king, I will finish up here," said Torvus, with half a bow, and Peter swiveled to follow Susan, who was already leading him around the wall of the keep and into what they'd been calling the back gardens. (Of course, the Witch had had no gardens, but it was an empty area between the keep and the outer walls: what else could it be?) She disappeared around one corner, then another, and Peter finally emerged into a sunny and overgrown yard, with flowering vines crawling up the outside wall and bees humming in the air. Against the far side was a jumble of tools and supplies piled against a half-built stone wall: part of a shed or stall that had been left unfinished.

Susan stood in the center of the garden, facing the unfinished shed, her fists clenched at her sides. She had not yet bathed after the march from Whiterush Vale: dust and sweat were smeared on her cheek, and her oversized tunic was spotted with grime and blood. "Peter, look," she said, and pointed at the shed. "Look!" Her voice shook.

It was just a stone wall. Peter walked closer. A stone wall, made of the same grey stone all the rest of the castle was; he put a hand on it, and then jerked it back with an oath.

It was stone, but the wall was made from many smaller pieces of stone, irregularly-shaped and fitted together and then mortared in place. The stone that Peter had touched ended in something that looked like a canine nose. Next to it was a roundish stone with a prickly surface, like a hedgehog's back; below that, clearly distinguishable, the broad underside of a bear's paw.

"I'm right, aren't I?" said Susan, from behind him. Her voice shook. "It's what I thought."

Peter nodded, still staring at the wall. Most of the individual stones were small enough for Peter to pick up in two hands, and some were even smaller: they all had sharp, raw edges, as though they had been shattered with some great force. At the unfinished end a single curved horn stuck out: a cow's, or a Minotaur's. The wall was some ten feet long and a foot wide, abandoned at about waist-height. He turned around slowly, but there was no more loose stone in the garden.

"We-Aslan never came back here, that morning," Susan said, her voice thick. "I would have remembered. And I-could even Aslan have done anything about this? Oh, Peter-" she wrapped her arms around herself and tears trickled down her face.

They stood there for what seemed to Peter like a long time, although it was probably just a few minutes. The shadows in the garden lengthened, and Peter felt himself growing very cold, although they were in the sun. The walls and grass and flowers around them seemed to recede into the distance; his pulse thrummed in his ears, growing louder and louder, like the pounding of a military drum. All right! he thought. I hear you now.

"Susan," he said, his throat dry and his voice raspy, and turned her about so he could see her face. "Come on, now. We have work to do."

She smeared the tears away with the heel of her hand. "Work!" she protested. "But-"

"Yes, work. Let's go." He took her hand and towed her along, ignoring whatever she was saying: he couldn't really hear it, anyway, because of the drumming in his head. They came out into the front courtyard and found Torvus and Edmund elbow-deep in a barrel of arrows. Lucy was nowhere in sight: someone would have to find her.

"Edmund," Peter snapped. Edmund looked up, his expression of inquiry switching quickly to concern. Peter didn't wait for the question: he couldn't wait, the need to act was becoming desperate. "I need the rest of this all moved outside, and everyone out of the castle. Make it happen."

"Susan," he went on, as brusquely as he had with Edmund, "find Lucy and keep her with you. Then get all the prisoners together, settle them out in the field with a strong guard. Things are going to be... busy here shortly."

He could feel her eyes and Edmund's on him, could see the frown between her brows. But instead of challenging him, they exchanged glances, and nodded. "Where are you going, Pete?" asked Edmund, as he picked up a stone to hammer the lid back on the barrel.

"I'm going to light a fire."

Edmund's eyes widened: his sure movements became brisk and efficient. And Susan left the courtyard at a run.

The storerooms on the lower levels had contained quite a lot of supplies, including several small barrels of cooking oil, which were not too large to carry under one's arm. Peter didn't think the oil tasted like anything much, but it was oil: it would burn. The castle was built of stone, yes, but also wood: wood supports and beams, wood floors and furniture, wood underneath the slate roofs. He just needed to find the best place to start it.

Chewing his lip, Peter looked around the great hall, which was tall and windowless, with a few pieces of furniture at the inner end, including the Witch's "throne". There, he thought, and carried his barrel over to the tall seat. He put the barrel down and levered the bung out with his dagger. It was a small piece of light wood, about the size of his thumb; he tossed it over his shoulder and picked the barrel back up, tilting it so a dollop of oil came out and poured into a smooth puddle on the seat of the Witch's chair.

The oil was a clear yellow-green. Peter smiled grimly and tilted the barrel back upright, just enough so a thin drizzle streamed from the opening. Keeping the barrel at that angle as best he could, he made a loop through the entire first floor of the castle. He didn't have to go through every room, but he wanted to make sure he covered a lot of ground.

He went upstairs and did it again; and then again; and then went up into the towers, trailing oil behind him on the narrow wooden stairs. Coming down the stairs in the west tower, he slipped on the oil and nearly broke his neck-a last-second grab with his free hand at the window saved him. Gasping, and a little shaky with adrenaline, he stood for a moment and peered out the window.

The sun was low in the sky behind the castle: from this angle he could see the shadows of the towers stretching east over the fields. People were still going in and out the castle gateway, but there was a great pile of supplies and equipment growing, a good hundred yards out in the meadow. He couldn't see Susan or Lucy, but he could see the prisoners: three dozen or so figures mostly seated on the ground, surrounded by Centaurs and Fauns. Good: he liked his Dwarfs fine, but they were clannish, and if a cousin was among the prisoners, he didn't want to put any of his own to guard them, just in case.

The last tower was the tallest, the one where he'd found the furs. Peter up-ended the barrel over the furs, soaking them, and with a strength fueled by the rage he'd been throttling back, he split the barrel apart and cast the wood around the room. "Be at peace in Aslan's Country, my brothers and sisters," he said, breathing heavily. "You are avenged."

The flint and steel that the Dwarfs of Pattering Hill had given him were clumsy in his hands. He had to strike nearly a dozen times before the first spark sprang off and landed on the oil-soaked burlap. It fizzled out; Peter struck again and again, and then, at last, it caught. A tiny flame arose, the smell of the burning oil and cloth pungent in the small room. Peter stood, watching, as it spread, the oil feeding it: in seconds the flame was the size of his hand, and then his head, and then it covered the entire top of the bale and was over a foot high. Peter nodded with satisfaction and left the room, leaving the door wide open.

Halfway down the stairs, on the landing, he stopped and took out the flint and steel again. This time it went faster, and as he clattered down the steps below he could see the light from the flames on the ceiling above. He came all the way down, crossed to the west tower, and lit another fire on the third-floor landing. When he looked out the window as he came back down, he saw smoke billowing out of the top of the central tower.

He lit a fire in the scullery, broke open another oil barrel and rolled it down the stairs to the dungeons and threw a torch after it, and finally found himself back in the great hall. The smoke was pouring down the stairs now, and rolling out of the doorways into the hall. Billows of it gathered in the rafters.

There was shouting outside; he heard Susan's voice. "Peter! Peter, where are you?" He supposed it was time to leave. But first he had one last fire to set.

The door crashed open and the rush of air sucked more smoke into the room. Peter couldn't even see who was at the door, but it didn't matter. He struck a spark and it flew off and landed perfectly on the oil-soaked seat of the throne. It was very hot now: he could feel the sweat pouring down his face and neck, and the smoke was burning his eyes.

A hand seized his shoulder and jerked him around. Susan, her eyes wide with horror, was shouting, but Peter wrenched away to check on his fire. Ah! It had caught, and now a small flame was licking up the tall back of the seat. In moments, the entire chair would be ablaze. He smiled, and looked at Susan, and then a cloud of smoke wrapped itself around them, obliterating the room and choking the breath in their lungs, and Peter realized, quite suddenly, that he might have killed them both.


In later years, when these early days were half-legend to most Narnians, those few who had fought at the Battle of Whiterush Vale were often asked to tell the children about how High King Peter burned down the Witch's castle, and emerged from the fire followed by his sister, with the flames shooting into the sky behind them. The veterans were happy to tell the story, and always made it sound heroic and dramatic, the tall golden-haired king with his sword on his back, silhouetted by the furiously burning castle as the sun went down behind the mountains in the west.

What Peter remembered was crawling to the door on his hands and knees, pulling Susan for a space and then Susan pulling him; getting lost at least once and almost ending up in the anteroom; and the two of them tumbling down the long flight of steps into the relatively clear air of the courtyard. And the sound: the roar of the fire itself, the flames hungrily eating everything consumable in the castle, and the horrifying groan as the west tower began to collapse inwards. Peter didn't realize what it was, but Susan looked up, and her mouth dropped open, and she grabbed Peter's shirt and dragged him along the cobblestones until Peter scrambled to his feet.

They came staggering out of the castle gate, holding one another up, covered in soot and coughing so hard Peter realized later he had sprained a muscle: he couldn't laugh comfortably for days afterwards. There wasn't an inch of exposed skin that was clean, and Edmund stared at them in horror for a moment before dashing forward to take Susan's other side.

With his help, and Tumnus supporting Peter, they came away from the castle to a safe spot out in the field, where Lucy was waiting, with the cordial, clean clothes, and-blessedly-clean water for washing. When they had finally stopped coughing, and had drunk enough water to wash the taste of the fire out of their mouths, Peter carefully eased his filthy shirt off. He stared at it: even in the dim evening light, he could see the charred holes where sparks had landed on his back as they fled the castle.

"Well," said Edmund pointedly, handing Susan another mug of clean water. "That was stupid." Susan's face was almost invisible in the darkness, but Peter heard her snort in agreement, and then cough.

"But necessary," Peter replied. It had to be done: the castle was a taint on Narnia, a blight that, if left standing, could have spread outwards to ruin everything they were working for. The grief and horror permeating the place could only be cleansed if the entire edifice was taken down, stone by stone. He wasn't sure how to say that, though: it was all tangled up with the drumming in his ears, which could have been Aslan's voice-or so he hoped, unless it was merely his own unmanageable anger. He just knew that it had to be done, and now the rage was gone, leaving an unfamiliar certainty in its place.

He looked around; the camp was settling in for the evening, with fires leaping up around the field, and Narnians passing back and forth with equipment and food. Rhea lay nearby, watching him with bright eyes. Peter desperately wanted something to eat, and then to sleep around the clock, but there was one last thing he had to do tonight. And it wasn't something he could hand off to one of his siblings: this, too, was for the High King.

"I see that look on your face," said Lucy from beside him. "You aren't going anywhere until you drink this, wash your face, and put on a clean shirt." She thrust a bowl into his hands.

"Do I have a clean shirt?" Peter asked plaintively.


"I don't think this is a good idea," said Susan. She had washed her face as well, but the flickering firelight showed Peter the strain and exhaustion of the last few days. Just a day ago, he realized, she had been near to death. "They're our enemies, I don't want you that close to them."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you go talk to them by yourself just yesterday?"

She flushed, and shot an angry glance at Edmund, who shrugged. "Yes, but I'm no threat, and I'm not the High King! And haven't you already risked your life once today?"

"I'll be fine. Besides, I'm not going unarmed." Peter reached back, ignoring the stiffness in his arms and the stab in his ribs, and drew Rhindon. The gold pommel gleamed in the darkness, catching light from all the fires around. "And you can keep an eye on things from out here."

"I will!" she said, and turned back to their campsite, presumably to fetch her bow.

"Don't get yourself knifed," said Edmund with a quirk of an eyebrow, and stepped back as well.

Peter nodded to the Centaurs guarding the prisoners and walked past them into the circle where the prisoners were being held. It was, he realized, a bit unfair to put them all together, because there were two quite distinct groups of prisoners.

First there were the Narnians who had held the castle for Bruno and assaulted Lucy, of which there were maybe fifteen or so. (The Patrol members who had followed Bruno into battle, and survived, now seemed quite comfortable following Edmund and Susan; Peter assumed this was because Bruno had abandoned them during the battle. But there could be trouble there in the future, and he made a note to keep an eye on the situation.)

And then there were the Rebels, those remnants of the Witch's army who had survived and surrendered at the Battle of Whiterush Vale. There was little sympathy between these two groups, and they had separated, leaving an empty space in the center of the great circle.

Perfect. Peter walked to a spot near the center of the circle, sword in hand, and sank as gracefully as he could down into a cross-legged position. He lay Rhindon on the ground in front of him, crosswise.

When he looked up, he saw that all the prisoners were watching him. He had positioned himself so that most of them were in front of him: a great arc of faces and suspicious eyes, with a gap in the middle. On one side were the Rebels; on the other the remainder of the Western Narnian Patrol. Ogre and Minotaur, Goblin and Hag on one side; Cougar and Wolf and Dwarf on the other. (None of the Harpies had surrendered, Edmund had said, with a grimace.)

"I am Peter," he said, speaking hoarsely, but as clearly as he could through the damage the smoke had done to his throat. He could not pitch his voice to carry past this small crowd of prisoners, but then he didn't mean to. If he kept his voice quiet, they would have to attend to him, and that was what he needed. "Peter High King of Narnia, by grace of Aslan, and Lord of Cair Paravel." At that, they stirred, and one of the Werewolves gave a mocking laugh.

"Jadis is dead," he said, gesturing to the still-burning ruins of the castle, "and that Narnia with her. Yet we are not without challenges, in this reborn Narnia. Jadis' Winter is over, but the natural round of seasons is begun again, and there is frost already in the high country. Do we have enough food set aside to feed all the children? Do we have homes for all the Narnians returned from exile?

"Jadis' ice and snow no longer protects our borders, and the Giants have already begun to press against us in the north. We may have enemies on the west and south, who will see our strife and disorganization, and take the opportunity to invade. After one hundred years of isolation, who knows what has transpired in the outer world?

"We need information, supplies, industry and organization. Soldiers and messengers and farmers and herders. Weavers and miners, smiths and carpenters and foresters. Traders and businessmen, shipwrights and sailors.

"There is no room now for Narnians who think only of their own clans, their own people, their own needs. We must all work together to rebuild, or we shall assuredly all fail on our own-and Aslan will take Narnia away from us, who could not protect her, and give her to someone who can."

He stopped and looked around. The light was poor, but there were enough fires and torches that he could meet every eye. Some of the prisoners met his gaze levelly; others sneered; others looked away, mostly down. The Cougar gazed at him unblinking, her eyes lambent in the firelight.

"This is my proposal to you. You have until Aravil sets to come to me at the edge of the circle there, and give me your oath. If you do that, all debts shall be held paid." That got their attention, and not just the prisoners': there was a gasp and a thud from the guards, as if someone had dropped a spear. Peter swallowed painfully and went on. "I shall take your oath, and give you mine, and as you deal honorably with me, so shall I and all of Narnia deal with you. But mark me-" here he looked around again, catching every eye he could. "This is only for tonight.

"If you choose not to give your oath to me tonight, and thereby to Narnia, you shall no longer be of Narnia. You will be escorted to the border and set free there, to find your own way in the Western Wild. You will be outlaw in Narnia, forbidden to return."

The prisoners shifted again, the Dwarfs looking at one another, and one of the Minotaurs lowed uncertainly. Peter smiled grimly. "Make your choice. But know that this oath is binding: you shall swear by your blood in Aslan's name, and Rhindon, here, shall answer to oath-breakers. If you cannot take oath to Narnia with your whole heart, better you should live in the wilderness."

It was done. Peter sat quietly for a few more breaths, and then took the sword again into his hand and stood as smoothly as he could (stumbling now would be dangerously embarrassing). At the edge of the circle, he saw Edmund staring at him, brows drawn. "Come to me," Peter said to the prisoners, and walked away to where the guards and his siblings waited.

"How many hours is that?" Peter asked quietly, leaning unobtrusively (or so he thought) against Edmund. Exhaustion was like a lead weight on his shoulders. "Until Aravil rises?"

"Aravil rises before midnight, king," rumbled Stormcoat from behind him. "It will not be long. And see, here is your first recruit." And Stormcoat was right: the Cougar from the Patrol was already approaching the line of guards, her head held high.

"Someone get a chair," said Susan, coming up to Peter and pressing her lips to his cheek. "It's going to be a long night."

In the end, all four of the Pevensies were there for the first formal oath-taking of their reign, seated on logs and stones and crates of supplies as, in trickles over the next four hours, fully half of the prisoners swore themselves to Narnia under Peter the High King. Susan, Edmund, and Lucy sat as witnesses as Peter drew the hand (or paw or foot) of each oath-taker along Rhindon's edge, and smeared his own blood with theirs as they recited the oath.

Rhindon grew slowly dimmer in the torchlight as bloodstains spread across its shining blade. But in the morning, the stains were all gone, and that too became part of the tale that was later told.