Previously on The Dragon Rider Chronicles, our band made it into Tashbaan with a solid and effective plan. Everything went well until Shasta was mistaken for Prince Cor and in his panic, convinced king Edmund that Jacob had saved him from a group of bullies. King Edmund took both back to the palace. Upon realizing what prince Rabadash intended to do, they contrived a plan of escape and mad the preparations. We catch up with them the next morning.
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By the time I woke up, it was evening and Tumnus was shaking me awake. As I pulled myself awake, I could Edmund put some things into a bundle.
"Oh, good knight. What's going on?" "It's time to go down to the boat, Jacob. You've been asleep for four hours now" "If it's that late in the day we probably need to get going."
A slight grin cracked the faun's face, undoubtedly some needed humor. "Susan, Peridian, Beardstead, and Grimsby are already on the ship and everyone is getting ready to go down now."
"Alright, thanks, Tumnus. I probably need to change clothes."
"Once we get on the ship, friend. For now, we need to go." As we walked down to the harbor, we were all rather nervous that someone would stop us and we might not get out of the city. Once we got off the main road, everything got dirtier and grimier. The poverty was atrocious and it made me happier than ever that I lived in America. I wanted to comment on it, but I figured we probably needed to get a look at the city in case something happened and we had to escape.
We had to go through the wall again and even at this point the walls were incredibly thick and there were just as many guards as the main gate. Again, I had to give points for security. The docks weren't much better. Giant wood warehouses lined the docks and were surrounded by bales and boxes. Men scurried around moving and shifting goods between ships.
Then I caught sight of the Hyaline. I could see some Spanish in her lines and she looked about 100 feet long. I didn't see any guns on deck but I expected that. A couple of the people gave us momentary glances but didn't make anything of it. Apparently, the plan was working so far, and I was incredibly glad for it. I might get home after all. We went below decks as if we were going to prepare for the feast and once we reached the deck everyone let out a sigh of relief.
I was the first one to speak. "Oh my gosh! We actually made it. I would let out a yell of gratitude if I could." Edmund gave just about as loud a laugh as he could. "I would too, my young friend. However, you and the Corin need to stay below decks. Peridian, you and the crew go about offloading some of the supplies as if to make room and I will take a couple men and start putting the tables together. Remember, our chances rely on us making this as convincing as possible." "Of course, sire. Right away." Edmund stopped him for a minute. "Oh and Peridian. We're not in front of anyone, so call me Edmund. Peridian grinned and bowed as he left. "Yes, Edmund."
There's not much to describe. By the time we finished all the preparations, it was pretty late in the night and most of the dock workers had gone home. Everyone else was working and Shasta and I were laying in a couple of hammocks. At least, since I was asleep during the switch – out, I had no idea what had happened.
Cor was about to let me in on this little fact. "Jacob, there's something I need to tell you."
"Sure, what's up Shasta?"
"Uh, I'm not Shasta Jacob. You fell asleep before Shasta and as he was starting to nod off I climbed up over the windowsill into the room. Unfortunately, I knocked a vase over and woke him. You must be a deep sleeper to go through something like that."
…Section Break…
I looked at Corrin cross-eyed for a minute. "Yeah, if I'm not wakened up before a certain point, I'm pretty much dead to everything. This was probably the one time it wasn't a good idea."
Corrin nodded his head in agreement. "Most likely. Anyway, he filled me in on everything that's happened so far. Are you really from another dimension where we are all mentioned in books?"
I grimaced a little as I nodded. Why did Shasta have to tell him that part! I mean, seriously. I continued. "Yeah, I'm really from another world and yes, all of you are mentioned in a book series. Although considering the author lived nearly 60 years before me, he didn't know this would be happening. That's why I'm not in the books. So Shasta told you everything that's happened so far, huh."
Corrin nodded. "Yes, they did. Seeing as King Edmund and the rest of our party don't know I don't believe we should tell them right now."
"I hate to admit this, but you're probably right man. We need to tell Ed privately and we can't exactly get that here." Cor nodded. "Ok. That's what we will do.
Ok, before I go any farther with my journey let's take a quick detour and find out what happened to Shasta, as well as Aravis and the horses. If you've already read the books they have a pretty good understanding of what's coming, so you can probably skip ahead a little if you want to. Or those of you who haven't read or just want to see how close they are to reality, follow along.
While Ed and the rest of our gang were busy readying the ship and waiting for nightfall, Shasta made his way out to the tombs. As I would find out later, he saw Aslan twice.
Aravis and the horses didn't show up for a while, so just as he had gathered up some fruit and was getting ready to cross the desert alone, the horses and Aravis arrived. The bad part was Aravis had been cleaned up and the horses were being led by another man and all had proper tack and saddles. Shasta thought they had been captured, so he hid behind one of the tombs and waited for them to come over. As soon as they did, he ran up and asked what had happened.
Turns out, after Shasta and I had been escorted away Aravis and the horses had just stood there. Obviously, the horses couldn't do anything other than act dumb or they would never have gotten out of there and Aravis might run the risk of being recognized. A couple minutes later, one of Arvis's friends, Laurasarleen, came by on a litter. Aravis commandeered it and herself as well as the horses were safe for the time being. It took a little convincing but Laurasarleen agreed to help her. Aravis would be dressed as a high-ranking slave and they would go straight through the Tisroc's private garden to the river, and there Aravis and the horses could make it out of the city to the tombs.
…Section Break…
It was apparently easy going until they had to go through the old palace, the last obstacle before the river. Laurasarleen forgot the route and they ended up in a dark corridor. Unfortunately, just as Laurasarleen remembered the way, the men started walking back down the corridor holding candles. As Aravis would explain to me later, the only people who had that much attention given to them was royalty. She would also explain to me that the penalty for interrupting a private procession like the one they ran into was punishable by death. Wonderful. So, they did the only thing they could do, ducked into a room, closed the door and hid behind the couch hoping no one would come. Actually, it was a good idea. The only real problem was that they heard the door opening, which meant they were stuck. Oh, the irony. I say ironically because the little tidbit they were about to discover would end up saving Archenland. But if they were caught, then they were dead. See what I mean, irony. As tempted as I am to give you the conversation word for word, I didn't hear it directly. And we already went through that with the escape plan.
Basically, the Tisroc's son, Rabadash, was wanting to take over Archenland and eventually use that as a foothold to invade Narnia itself. The Tisroc wanted the same thing but hadn't acted on it because he saw no opportunity for an exit strategy. Having an exit strategy, as I would later learn the hard way, is the difference between a battle plan and a suicide mission. So I guess I have to give them credit for that. Anyways, Rabadash basically intended to sneak up to Archenland overnight, capture it and then proceed to Narnia, beating Susan and her company to Cair Paravel. Since Peter and most of the men were up north fighting the giants, the company left at Cair Paravel would be easily subdued. Rabadash would then kidnap Susan and take her back to Calormene. Once that was done, the next step would be to forge letters convincing them Susan wanted to stay there. Since the Tisrock would now have Archenland, he could bide his time and invade Narnia at his first opportunity. I have to admit, it was pretty good. Bloodcurdling, devious, scheming, conniving, but brilliant. The two of them managed to stay hidden until the Tisrock and Rabadash left
After the scoundrels had left, Aravis and Larsen finished the rest of the plan. Getting Bree and Whin properly saddled and tacked, they made their way out to the tombs and met up with Shasta. Aravis and the horses were worried when they heard what had happened with me and the real prince. As Shasta would later tell me, they had all agreed that they were glad I had made it on the boat and I had a shadow of a chance to get home. The next thing they did was compare notes and, predictably, decided to get across the desert as quickly as possible.
The actual trip was pretty much like you would expect it. Hot, dangerous, and utterly exhausting. The raven was right though, the ravine was impossible to find unless you were looking for it. The trickle of water coming from the bottom soon turned into a river and everybody stopped to take a splash. I don't think they intended too, but the heatstroke made them sleep a whole day. Unknown to them, Rabadash and his men had just made it across the desert and were right behind them. They didn't actually find this out though until after they had resumed their journey.
…Section Break…
Everybody was just kind of plotting along rather lazily when Hwin looked back. There were silvery flashes and what looked like a flock of…something coming. Some of the things were holding tall sticks that had pieces of cloth flapping in the wind.
Bree squinted for a moment before his eyes flared as wide as saucers in recognition. "It's, it's – the army! What was I thinking earlier? I should have known they would be right behind us."
Hwin gave an indagated snort. "this is exactly what I was afraid of. What good are we dead?" Aravis answered the question. "We're not. Come on! We have to hurry, the fate of Archenland and our lives is back there." With that, the horses took off. It had to have been incredibly grueling, running with no idea of how far it was to Anvard, the castle, and King Lune. One hill after another rose up and passed and the only thing beyond that was another hill!
Since Rabadash and his troop of horsemen were walking and hadn't seen them, the gang was making some headway. Until a lion showed up. By this point, they had gained a couple miles on the army. The lion sneaked quietly out of the bushes and with a roar, jumped out, and went after
When and Aravis. Bree, ironically, had one phobia. Yep, you guessed it, lions.
Bree bolted, taking Shasta with him. Shasta incredibly was trying to get Bree to go back. I think Bree would have if it was something else. But phobias can be pretty hard to deal with. Aravis was frantically trying to get the stupid scimitar out of its scabbard and at the ready. It was stuck. The lion, unfortunately, was not. The animal lept up. What made it weird though, was that it didn't kill her like you would expect (duh!), but merely scrapped her back.
Shasta, meanwhile, was having pathetic luck with Bree. Since he couldn't get the horse to even slow down, he put his foot out of the stirrup AND JUMPED OFF! Oy! What he did next, although stupid, was frankly kind of awesome. He staggered back to Aravis and Hwin and SCOLDED the lion. Like a dog! According to Aravis and Hwin, he yelled something like, "Go home! Go home!" Seriously, Shasta! You have a death wish or something! What can I say, we're all one slightly whacked group. And to top it all off, the thing actually worked. The lion flipped and tromped off into the bushes. Hwin was scared and Aravis was bleeding rather badly. Bree must have gotten his fear under him because he was coming back
"Come in! Come in immediately! They all looked up to find the new voice and their view landed on the green wall of a hermitage and a hermit standing at the gate. That probably would have come in handy earlier. And with that, the four of them gratefully limped in.
Okay, let's shift attention back to the rat pack on the Splendor Hyaline. Everyone except the night watches pretty much conked out. Hey, can you really blame us? Oh man, the stress relief once that boat got out on the water and away from Tashbaan. There were a couple times that night when we could have told Edmund what really happened, but none of them panned out. Peridian was piloting the ship. While Grimsby and Beardstead took turns at lookout duty in the mast.
For some reason, I slept deep and got up early. I laid there for a half hour trying to go back to sleep. No luck. I finally decided to head out to the deck quickly and get a bit of air before waiting for the others to wake up. When I got out on the deck, I found Edmund standing there. As I turned around to head back inside, I heard him speak up. "Don't go yet. I could use another match to get some anxiety out. Besides, I have a hunch we will be at war with Rabadash soon, and if you don't get home before then. Well, I don't think I have to finish."
"no man, you don't. Alright then, shall we get to bruising ourselves?"
Edmund laughed as he turned around. "Yes indeed. And thank you, Jacob. Times like these call for laughter whenever possible. We got about 45 minutes in while the sun finished its morning ascent.
…Section Break…
By the time the sun finished rising, we were pulling into the harbor at Cair Paravel. The place was nothing short of incredible. Beautiful, gorgeous, call it whatever you want. Since we had snuck out of Tashbaan, there weren't many people on the deck and most of them were dockhands unloading a merchant ship.
We had all gathered at the railing as the ship pulled in. Edmund was standing in the middle with Susan on his left. Corrin was between them, with Peridian and I on Edmund's right. When they saw the royal flagship, most of them stared for a minute before recognizing the ship and one of them ran into the dock master's office. A couple minutes later he came from behind the building and took off full gallop towards the castle.
Edmund gave a slight chuckle as I observed the spectacle. "Well, they definitely know we're here now. All heck is probably going to break loose as soon as we get off this boat."
Peridian looked at me with a grin. "There's no doubt about that now." Beardstead and Grimsby had joined us at the rail and Grimsby spoke up with his lisp. "Aye, although considering what's likely going on in Tashbaan right now, we should probably get Corrin home as soon as possible.
The conversation was temporarily halted as Edmund and Peridian pulled the gangplank into place that had been lifted up by a couple dockhands. Edmund gestured to Susan and she led the way, followed by Edmund, then Peridian and then Corrin.
When I stood back to let Grimsby and Beardstead go first, Susan looked back at me. "Why aren't you up here?"
"Uh, shouldn't the royalty go first?"
"Oh, nonsense. I'm only formal like that with the court and all that rot. Any friend of Cor's is a friend of ours. Come on up here with us."
"Ah…w-what? Wow! I-I don't know what to say."
"Thank you would do nicely"
"Thank-you!" With that, we walked off the gangplank, past the dockhands that had lined up, and started the relatively short walk toward the castle.
There was a slight hill between the dock and the town. Beyond that, you could see the path that wound up toward Cair Paravel. As we started through the town, we could see the people lining up along the road and in the distance, a column of horses exited the main castle gate and started toward the town. Edmund, Susan, and Peridian acknowledged the crowd with a random nod or wave.
Just after we cleared the last buildings, the column met up with us. I knew I would run into centaurs at some point, but actually seeing was still kind of shocking. There were two of them up front with heralds and full armor. There were two columns, six each, behind them. The first three in each row were leading horses. The whole column stopped, and the centaurs gave as best a bow they could.
The one on our right spoke up first. "Your majesty, you have our utmost apologies for not giving you a proper greeting."
Edmund was the one to reply. "No need to apologize, Destrier. You had no way of knowing"
"Thank – you. Who is your friend?"
"This is Jacob Oliver. He aided Cor fending of some bullies in Tashbaan. He's not from around here. Right now, we need some horses and provisions for a trip to Archenland.
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As, always, hope you enjoyed reading and don't forget to REVIEW! Thanks for reading and I'll catch you next time!
