Dew wet on her bare feet, Lucy crunched another bite of her apple and stared happily out over the hills and valleys, a thousand shades of green in the just-rising sun. Narnia, she had decided, was not just exciting (and sometimes terrifying): it was also beautiful. In England, the view would be marked with the lines of hedgerows and railways, and the square shapes of fields and yards, barns and houses; here she could see no such evidence of the work of hands. Just trees and rivers, hills and taller hills, mist pooling in the valleys, until far away in the distance snow-capped peaks reflected the sun back at her.
A hand snaked into her field of view and snatched away her apple.
"Hey!" Lucy protested, but Edmund tossed it in the air with a grin before examining it thoughtfully.
"Where did you get this? I've never seen one like it." Edmund was right: it was unusual, a glossy yellow-green apple with a golden sheen in the morning light. It tasted sweet and tart, the flavor so perfectly apple that it made the memory of all the other apples Lucy had ever eaten fade into dust.
She put out her hand. "Give it back and I'll tell you." When Edmund had done so, she took another bite and chewed it slowly, smiling as his expression grew impatient. When at last she had swallowed, she pointed into the woods to the southeast, just below the rise. "Over there-there's an old orchard, with tons of apples."
"Well, that's good to know, but Lu, you know you shouldn't go about by yourself. What if something happened?" They were, after all, some distance from the campsite, at the far southern end of the great field, out of earshot of any of their friends.
"I have my knife!" she protested, but had to admit that her knife had not protected her from the Dryads. She grimaced and kicked at a tussock of grass. "All right, fine. But I didn't mean to, really. It just happened."
"What, you came out here at dawn for no reason?" asked Edmund, skeptically. When she just nodded, mouth full of apple, he frowned, then his expression brightened. "I say, let's get some more of your apples and bring them back for breakfast." And so they did, carrying two dozen apples back to the camp in a bag made of Edmund's shirt, while he shivered bare-chested in the morning chill.
"Do you think we'll ever go home?" Lucy asked him, as they walked across the field, their bare feet leaving tracks in the wet grass. "To England, I mean." She didn't know why she thought of it: perhaps it was the apple, reminding her of picking apples in Aunt Nina's garden. When she thought about something specific, like apples, England didn't seem very far away; and yet it seemed as though she could go for days without thinking of England, or Finchley, or her parents, at all. It was very odd.
Edmund tossed an apple core away and plucked another out of his shirt. "I don't know," he said. "I mean, I suppose Aslan could send us back anytime he likes. But it's not-well, it's dangerous here, Lu. If one of us..." He didn't finish the sentence, and it took Lucy a moment to realize what he was saying.
"You mean we could die here?" A shock ran through her at the thought. But Edmund had been very badly injured in the battle with the Witch: Lucy remembered how white he had been, how her hand had shaken as she tilted the vial to give him a drop of the cordial.
He moved his shoulders, uneasily. "Everyone else can. Why not us?" He lifted his apple as if to bite it, and then put it back with the others. "But we're here because Aslan wants us to be. So maybe we'll be sent back when we do what we're meant to, or if we don't do what we're meant to..." His voice trailed off, and then he blinked, shrugged, and looked down at her feet. "Whatever happened to your boots, Lucy?"
"They hurt, and we're not marching today, so I left them off. What about yours?"
He grinned and stuck one foot out in front of him and wiggled his toes, hopping on the other foot. "My feet got too big. I guess we'll just have to go barefoot for a while."
The camp was fully roused for the day now, and they wove between small fires and Dwarfs rolling up bedrolls to find their own campsite. "There you are!" said Susan as they came into view. "You'll never guess what Mr. Tumnus found!" Susan carefully ladled something dark from a pot next to the fire and handed the lopsided metal mug to Lucy.
"Tea!" Lucy dropped down on the nearest bedroll (which was Peter's, and she was lucky not to sit on his stone knife) and put her face over her mug. It smelled wonderful, and it tasted wonderful too, even without milk or sugar. "Wherever did you find it?"
"Err, in the supplies from the castle," said Tumnus. "I thought there might be some..." His explanation trailed off, and Edmund gave him a sharp look.
"Was she your source, Tumnus?" Edmund asked, his voice casual. Tumnus nodded, not looking at anything but his own mug. "Do you know where she got it? Is it grown in Narnia?"
"Oh, no," said another voice, a strange, dark, croaky kind of voice. Lucy looked around to see a large black bird-a Raven, she thought-standing on the log next to Susan. "Tea, or Camellia sinensis, needs much warmer weather than we have here in Narnia, even without a century of sub-freezing temperatures. No, no, tea is grown for export in Calormen and the lands to the south, and in some sheltered areas of Terebinthia and the Lone Islands. It must all be imported to Narnia. Hmmph." He clacked his beak once or twice, and then sunk his head and fluffed his feathers, as if cold.
"Oh, Lucy and Edmund, meet Sallowpad," said Peter from the other side of the fire. "He's come up from Beruna with word for us."
"Hallo," said Lucy, a little uncertainly.
"What is the word from Beruna?" asked Edmund. He untied the knot he'd made of his shirtsleeves and let the apples roll out onto Peter's blankets.
"The warning your majesties sent came in good time," said the Raven, and Lucy felt a sudden thrill at being so addressed. "The village is small by other nation's standards, but we would have lost a great deal. As it was, we were able to save most of the trade goods set aside for the Autumn Market, although we lost of course most of the crops that had been planted."
"Oh, good," said Lucy, and tossed an apple to Peter, who caught it and grinned. "No one was hurt, were they?"
Sallowpad clacked his beak again, making Lucy jump. "We were lucky, but not that lucky, I am afraid. The Naiads saved one of the Dryads, but three others perished, along with Rana the Dwarf and a Horse from the south plains, whose name I never learned. And there might be others, further upstream."
"Damn." Peter scrubbed his hand through his hair. He had cleaned off the worst of the soot from yesterday, but his shirt was dirty again and his eyes were still red from smoke. "Has the river fallen? Can you rebuild?"
"I should think so, your majesty-" began Sallowpad, only to be interrupted by Torvus, towing an unfamiliar Dwarf by the collar of his mail shirt, and surrounded by a motley group of other Narnians. Lucy recognized one of Spearfast's sons, Barton and Rex, and a cowed-looking Goblin who had (to everyone's surprise) sworn to Peter in the firelit darkness last night.
"What is this?" said Peter quietly, and stood up, one hand resting on Rhindon's hilt, as Torvus pushed the Dwarf in front of him. Lucy caught a shocked breath: the Dwarf had been shaved, and was both bald as an egg and beardless as well.
"I know you," Susan exclaimed, and leaned forward. "You're Bindle! What happened to you?"
Bindle looked at her, eyes wide with shame and fear, and then shook his head. "Jumped on the way back from the latrine pits in the dark," said Torvus succinctly. "Won't say who did it." He looked disgusted, but Lucy couldn't tell if he was affronted by Bindle himself, or by what had been done to him.
"That's awful!" Lucy cried, unable to stop herself. "He is a Narnian now, as much as any of us! Who would do this?"
"Likely someone whose home he burned, or took to the Witch to turn to stone," someone muttered in the gathering crowd. Lucy glared about her, but she could not tell who said it.
"That doesn't make it right," she insisted. "He swore an oath, he must have the chance to prove himself."
Peter raised a hand, revealing the scab where he had cut himself to take Bindle's oath last night, and all those others. "Enough, Lucy." He drew a breath, let it out, and said, raising his voice, "Whoever has done this has broken faith with me, and with Narnia. All debts are paid, I said, and I shall hold to that."
There was a disgruntled rustling. "Fine for you to say!" came the same voice, from somewhere in the crowd. "They didn't put you off your land for a hundred years, starve your family, burn you out!"
At this, Susan stood up and stepped forward to stand beside Peter. She had washed and rebraided her hair, and looked much more like royalty than any of the rest of them, with their torn clothes and bare feet: Susan had somehow even managed to find a clean shirt. "Come forward," Susan called. "Come forward, and speak your words so all may hear them."
Lucy expected the heckler to flee, but to her surprise a Faun shouldered forward through the crowd, one whose face she knew. "Fraxinus!" exclaimed Edmund, in some surprise.
Fraxinus looked nervous, but also determined, and he hitched his belt so his sword hilt jutted forward.
"Say what you wish," said Susan, after a glance at Peter. "You shall not be harmed."
The Faun looked even more alarmed now, and Lucy bit her lip on a flush of vindictive anger. Be afraid, she thought, and Edmund put his hand on her arm; she felt his tension in the strength of his grip.
"You don't-" began Fraxinus, hesitated, and started again. "He's the enemy!" he said, pointing at Bindle, who couldn't look less threatening if he'd been stripped naked. Lucy had not realized how much of a Dwarf was made by his beard: without the hair, Bindle looked like little more than a child, not a deadly fighter.
"He, and his kind-they served the White Witch, they were loyal to her! Not because they had to, but because they wanted to. They took people away at night to her dungeons, they stole food if they thought you'd been hoarding, they cut down mature trees for her to burn in her stoves! They're not Narnians, they can never be Narnians!" Fraxinus wound up, his face flushed, hands shaking with emotion.
Peter and Susan were watching Fraxinus as he spoke; Edmund was watching Bindle. Lucy looked at the crowd, which had grown to include nearly everyone in the camp. Over a hundred Narnians were gathered around them, watching and witnessing this first real challenge to the new authority. And she was dismayed to see more than one head nodding approvingly, and hear some murmurs of assent; on the other hand, a few familiar faces-Torvus, Dora, Beaver, Stormcoat-looked worried rather than angry. Silversharp, she noticed, had somehow slipped around and was now behind Peter and Susan, standing nearly on top of the pot Susan had used for the tea. Rhea stood next to Edmund, her hackles lifted and her ears fixed forward.
If they turn against us, Lucy thought, we might be able to get away. But a lot of people might die, if there was fighting, and she didn't want to run without even any boots to wear.
Peter had folded his arms during Fraxinus' speech. He looked exhausted, and Lucy wondered if he had slept at all. "I see," he said. "And you, Bindle? Do you have anything to say?"
"You are under our protection," Susan added, with a sideways glance at Peter.
"For whatever good that does," muttered Edmund, too quietly for anyone but Lucy to hear.
Oh, Aslan... thought Lucy, but couldn't think of what to ask for. Were they wrong? Surely forgiveness couldn't be wrong; but this was not what she had expected. She slipped out of Edmund's hold and knelt down next to Bindle, who had remained stubbornly silent.
"Where are you from, Bindle?" she asked.
He looked up at her, a flash of fearful dark eyes, and then back at the ground. "Red Hill," he muttered. "South of the Great River."
Lucy could feel Peter and Susan staring at her, and she knew Peter had his hand on his sword again. But she wasn't afraid: Bindle wasn't Brikamun. Bindle was broken, somehow, the way that much of Narnia was. She curled her toes into the deep grass and kept her voice sympathetic. "Now that the war is over, are you going to go back there, to Red Hill?"
He laughed, a choked gasp that startled her. "There's nothing to go back to, queen! Red Hill's been empty this fifteen years!"
"Is that why you worked for her?" Edmund asked, his voice level. Lucy shot him a grateful glance.
Bindle put his hands over his face for a long moment, and then dropped them; although he kept clenching his fists, he didn't touch the small knife at his belt. He seemed otherwise unarmed, but then he had been a prisoner only twelve hours ago; his weapons were Aslan-knew-where.
"Where else could I go? They were all dead, and no other clan would have me," he said, his voice despairing. "At least I could eat..."
"While the rest of us starved!" spat Fraxinus, disregarding Susan's glare. "You turned on your own people! King," he went on, appealing to Peter, "You cannot trust his oath! He has no honor, no loyalty to Narnia or Aslan-he must pay for his crimes!" The crowd muttered agreement.
"And in the course of justice, none of us should see salvation," murmured Susan, and Peter snorted, and then sobered again.
"That's enough," he said, and though his voice was still rough from the smoke and he was tired and dirty, he sounded like a king. Everyone quieted. "Susan's right. None of us have clean hands, except by Aslan's grace. If every single crime is to be punished, we will end up killing each other here, repaying old injuries until we are nothing but bloody ruin in this field." He pulled Rhindon six inches from the sheath. "Do you truly want to start fighting again, when we have a chance for peace at last?"
Fraxinus paled, the certainty fading from his expression to be replaced with shock. "You would defend this? Over loyal Narnians who fought next to you-next to Aslan?"
At that, Edmund raised his head; his eyes were dark, his face somber. "Take care, Faun. Don't try to speak for Aslan on this. He is not a tame lion."
There was a croak, as Sallowpad the Raven circled once about the gathering and then landed heavily on Peter's shoulder. Lucy saw Peter wince as the bird's sharp claws closed over his woolen jerkin. "The boy-king speaks truth," said the Raven, and despite the harshness of his voice, his words carried over the crowd. "Aslan never promised that peace would be easy. Easy was the old way, killing and taking from others, like dumb beasts, who don't know any better. That's how Jadis liked it, because when we hated one another she could do what she wanted. We need to be smarter than we were."
"And kinder," added Lucy, as loudly as she could. "Aslan can forgive anything, don't you see? And if he can, we have to try, too!"
She could see some faces in the crowd growing uncertain and thoughtful. One or two of those in the back shook their heads and turned away: Lucy couldn't tell if that was a good sign or not. Peter let his sword slide back into the sheath.
But Fraxinus was brave, and stubborn in his enmity. "They burned the holts and killed the children," he said, his voice cracking with grief. "And the vineyards died, because of her, because of what he helped her do. Oh, king," he pleaded, holding one hand out to Peter, "You can't ask me to pretend it didn't happen. I don't want to fight you, but I can't walk beside him, as though it was nothing, as though it didn't matter!"
Susan whispered something in Peter's ear, too softly for even Lucy to hear. Peter's face eased a little. "I won't ask you to, then," he said to Fraxinus. "If you honestly do not trust yourself to serve beside Bindle, and Goblin Drust, and the Stag Elmshadow-I will not require it of you, not right now. But there must be no more violence, do you hear? This shames you, shames Narnia, shames Aslan. It must stop."
Fraxinus hesitated, clearly torn, and Lucy held her breath. At length he bowed his head, and said to the ground, "As you say, king." And like that, the confrontation was over. Fraxinus melted back into the crowd and Bindle was helped off, walking stiffly, by a small group of the Oathsworn, all former Patrol or former Rebels, drawn together by the distrust of the other Narnians. Lucy stood up and brushed the grass off her knees, and sighed when she realized her tea was gone cold.
"You know that's not going to be the end of it," Edmund said, when the crowd around them had dispersed, and it was just the four Pevensies, Sallowpad, and Rhea at the fire. Even Beaver had backed away, going back to a quiet conversation with Tumnus.
Peter dropped bonelessly onto his bedroll and groaned aloud. "I know, Ed! I know. I just... What else can we do right now?"
"Find someone new to fight?" suggested Susan dryly; Peter started to laugh, but it turned into a racking cough until he swallowed half a mug of cold tea with a grimace.
"That's not a bad idea," said Edmund, from flat on his back on his blankets. "Except for the fact that we're in no way prepared for even another battle, much less a war." Lucy wondered what he had seen in the battle, that made him sound like that.
"Sallowpad is right, though," said Lucy. "And Aslan wouldn't give us something that was too hard for us to do. So, maybe we just, well, act as if it were all going to be okay?"
"Pretend until it's true? I suppose that's what we've been doing so far," said Susan. She took a shirt out of her pack, examined it, and dropped it on her bedroll, and then added a few other pieces of clothing. "Lucy, give me your dirty things, we need to do some washing."
"You're doing the wash?" asked Peter, cheering up. "Can you-"
Susan snorted. "No, I will not. If you want clean shirts, Peter Pevensie, you must wash them yourself."
"Will we have time to wash, though?" asked Lucy, pulling a pair of balled-up socks out of her boots. "Aren't we moving on today?" She handed the socks to Susan and dug into her pack. She had an extra shirt, a long tunic and a pair of breeches, all dirty, a knitted cap from the Wiggles, and another pair of socks (also dirty).
Rhea yawned and rolled over onto her side, exposing the pale, soft fur on her underside. Lucy wanted to scritch her belly, but instead just smiled at her. "I think we all need rest," Rhea said. "And unless there's new news, we don't know where we're going, yet."
"And there's washing to do," added Susan, with a pointed look at Peter's filthy breeches. "Let's take today off."
"Except for the memorial," Lucy put in. She felt responsible, somehow, for those poor lost children, as though finding them had put them in her care. She had woken in the night, after a dream in which she was locked alone in a cell, cold and hungry; when she couldn't get back to sleep, she took her blanket and curled up next to Susan, who had muttered comfortingly without ever waking up fully.
Edmund had taken the hint and was sorting through his belongings, although he had even fewer clothes than Lucy: half of his pack was taken up with the books he'd brought from Cair Paravel. "What about all the rest?" he asked. "We've got a hundred fighters here; do we take them with us?"
There was, astonishingly, a mostly-clean tunic in Peter's pack; he stripped off his shirt, dropped the tunic over his head, and stepped out of his breeches. The tunic fell only halfway down his thighs, and his legs looked startlingly pale in the morning sun, in comparison to the brown skin on his arms and face. "I've been thinking about that," he said. "I think we should send most of them home, except for the Oathsworn. They can go to Beruna with the supplies, to help with the rebuilding. That will keep them out of the way of Fraxinus and his friends, and there's not likely to be many who recognize them there." He stepped off his bedroll in his bare feet, reaching for his boots, and then paused, his eyebrows lifting. "That's odd."
Edmund sat up. "You feel it too! I thought so."
"Feel what?" asked Susan, looking up from the growing pile of clothes in her lap. "What are you going on about?"
Jumping up, Edmund gave Susan his hand and pulled her to her feet, tumbling clothes to the ground. "Come here, I want to see something." He waved Peter and Lucy forward as well, so they were all standing together on a patch of bare ground. "Okay, now close your eyes."
"Edmund, what is this?" protested Susan, looking baffled, and then Edmund looked down at her feet.
"Oh, wait, Su, you have to take your boots off for this. It'll just be a sec, I promise."
She scowled, but at a nod from Peter, squatted and unlaced her boots. When she stood up again, her expression changed. Lucy knew what she was feeling: a touch inside her mind, a sense of Narnia unlike anything she'd ever felt before. It was green and wide and windy, smelling of the sea and of apples. It had come and gone over the last several days: today it was stronger than ever, with an added urgency she hadn't noticed before. She glanced around to see Rhea watching them with ears erect, and Sallowpad was staring as well, although neither Beast said anything.
"All right, now close your eyes and turn about," commanded Edmund.
Lucy squeezed her eyes shut and spun for several seconds, trying to stay in one place and not bump into anyone. She heard Peter grunt and Susan muttered something, and then Edmund's voice said, "Stop and open your eyes."
The sun was warm on the side of her face, and Lucy squinted a bit as she opened her eyes. She looked about and realized that the others were all squinting too, because all four of them were facing the exact same direction. The same direction she had been looking when Edmund found her this morning. "Oh!" she said in surprise.
"So," Peter said, after a long moment, "I suppose we're going to southwest Narnia."
A "rest day" was still a busy day. They held a memorial for the castle's dead-both the children Lucy had found in the dungeons and some Narnians that Peter wouldn't talk about-in a green and shaded spot out of sight of the castle (with the help of a Badger and two Dwarfs). Lucy cried, harder than she had since the horrible night that Aslan died. But she felt better afterwards, and she hoped that the souls of the children had found some rest somewhere. Could they go to Heaven from Narnia?
She wanted to ask someone about that, but instead Susan tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a pile of clothing. "Come on, we're going to bathe, and do the washing."
Rhea came with them, padding through the open forest to the stream that ran northeast to southwest along the valley bottom. They went upstream of the latrine pits, because Edmund remembered that much from school. It was a lovely spot, all green and dappled sunshine-and-shadow playing on the rippling surface of the water. There was even a deeper pool with great boulders to sit on, and Lucy lost no time in stripping off her clothes and jumping into the water.
"Lucy!" protested Susan, but Lucy laughed and splashed at her: after all, they were in Narnia, not England, and Rhea was hardly going to care if they ran around without any clothes on at all. The water was chilly but not too cold, the bottom rough gravel under her feet. Lucy ducked under the water and came up laughing.
A girl came up out of the water with her.
She, too, was naked, but she was made of water. The water flowed and flowed, outlining a young woman's body with long rippling hair; and then the water drained away and she was flesh, but still not Human. Her skin was mottled like the dapples on the water, her hair dark green and a bit mossy, her eyes grey as the gravel underfoot.
"Who gave you leave to enter my realm, Human?" she demanded, and Lucy took a startled step backwards, nearly toppling over.
"Lucy!" Susan shouted, and Lucy looked to the shore where Susan had strung her bow and set an arrow to the string. Rhea was still onshore as well, her hackles raised.
Lucy looked back at the water-girl. "No one," she said. "My name is Lucy, and-is the stream your realm? Is that what you mean?"
The water-girl tossed her head and the mossy green hair hung in the air, as though she were underwater. "Yes, yes, this is the East Branch of the Whiterush, that is my domain, from the headwaters on Beavertail Ridge to the junction with the West Branch." She sounded a little less angry now.
"What's your name?" asked Lucy. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Susan was waving at her anxiously, but this was important. There were people in the rivers! Why had no one mentioned this before? "Oh, and what did you do during the winter? While the water was frozen?"
The green hair stopped tossing and settled around the water-girl's shoulders. She cocked her head. "My name is Aleira," she said. "And we froze, of course. We have only been free for one cycle of the moon. It was very cold, before, but I do not remember much of it."
"Well, Aleira, it's very nice to meet you." Lucy started to put out her hand, and then remembered how confused Mr. Tumnus was by the gesture. So she bobbed a little curtsey. "I'm sorry I came into your realm without asking permission, but I was very dirty-"
"-and smelly," interjected Susan, from the bank.
"-and I needed a wash," Lucy finished without looking at her sister. "May we? Wash in your stream? And wash our clothes too?"
Aleira considered the question, and looked at Susan and Rhea on the bank as well. "Very well. But I remember before, Humans would use smelly rocks on their clothing and it made me ill. If you must do that, keep it out of my water."
"Smelly rocks?" Lucy squinted in confusion.
"I think she means soap, Lu," said Susan. "May we take water out, with buckets? That would keep the soap out of the stream."
"Very well," said Aleira, and then she was made of water again, and dissolved away into the surface of the stream, leaving not a ripple to show she'd been there.
Rhea snorted and lay down on the bank in a patch of sunlight. "Naiads. No sense of courtesy. Even if you'd told her you were crowned queens of Narnia she wouldn't have been any more polite. If you're not made of water they've no interest in you."
"So that's a Naiad," Susan said, and lay her bow down without unstringing it. She put the quiver next to it, and began unlacing her tunic. "Sallowpad mentioned them, but we've never met any."
The water was wonderful; Lucy let herself sink into it, dropping down to sit on the bottom of the stream, and opened her eyes. The sunlight slanted through the clear water in columns, like light through a church window. For an instant she saw a flicker of movement, as of someone passing by on a street, and then there was merely a large fish drifting upstream, its pink belly dappled with silver freckles. She came up out of the water and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
"-can do that?" Susan looked startled, one foot in the water and the other on the bank as she stared at Rhea.
Rhea flicked an ear in amusement. "Well, I couldn't; but you Humans are apparently adaptable. It's how King Frank got grandchildren, anyway: there were no other Humans in the world at all, according to the stories."
"Oh," said Susan, faintly, and stepped into the water, looking unsettled.
Lucy paddled over to her: the water was shallow enough to walk in here, but she knew she should practice her swimming. Falling into the Great River when the Wolves had chased them had been so frightening: she didn't want to go through that again. "What are you talking about?"
There was a faint scar on Susan's stomach: just a thin line. That had to be where she was hurt in the battle, but just like Edmund, Father Christmas' cordial had healed her completely. Without it, she might have died. Lucy thought about the memorial they had just held, and felt cold.
"Nothing important," said Susan, springing forward in a shallow dive that took her halfway across the pool. She stroked across to the far side and came back, moving smoothly through the water.
They played in the water for a little while, Susan offering advice occasionally, and then there was the washing to do. They wore their damp clothes and carried the rest as they returned to the campsite; halfway there, Rhea dashed off into the brush, and returned thirty seconds later with something furry dangling from her jaws. "Tired of salt beef," she explained in a muffled voice, and Susan laughed.
The camp was all astir when they found their fire, dozens of Centaurs stamping about with weapons and bedrolls strapped to their backs. The castle had finally stopped burning, but the wind had shifted since dawn and now the entire area smelled of smoke, and a fine layer of ash had settled on everything. Susan made a sound of disgust and picked up her blanket, shaking it out.
"What's going on?" Lucy asked Peter, who was hunched over Edmund's papers.
"What? Oh, you're back. Stormcoat's leaving; he's going to escort the prisoners to the western border and then go home."
"King Peter, I still think-" protested Tumnus, looking unhappy, but Peter cut him off.
"Sorry, Tumnus. We're keeping the party small, and I think you'll be more useful here, or in Beruna. It's up to you." He frowned absently and then looked down at the papers in his lap.
"As you say," said Tumnus, but he didn't look happy. Lucy went over and sat down, leaning against him; he brightened a bit. "I'm sorry I won't be going with you," he said quietly, "but, well, I'm also frightened. I'm not much for adventures, I've discovered."
"That's okay," Lucy said, and patted his arm. "I'll have your adventures and come back and tell you all about them. All right?"
"All right." Tumnus put a frying pan on the fire and began frying up some small fish, which he had evidently saved just for Lucy and Susan. Lucy would miss him, but she was happy he would be safe; it would be nice to come back to his cave after adventures and have tea.
Susan shook out her clothes and draped them carefully to dry. "Peter, what are looking at? Is that all you've done this morning?"
He flapped a hand at her, frowning, and then looked up. "No, I trained with Ed and sent Sallowpad up to see the Wiggles, and talked to Silversharp about going back to Cair Paravel as weapons-master for a year."
"Oh." Susan looked surprised, then said, "That makes a lot of sense, bringing Silversharp to Cair Paravel. Will she do it?"
"And what's going on with the Wiggles?" added Lucy.
"One, yes, she will, and I'll send some of the Oathsworn with her for training right away; and two, we need to send these supplies to Beruna and Cair Paravel, and the best way to do that is by boat. So, Wiggles." Peter looked proud of himself. "And this?" He shook the papers in his hands, and then reached them over to Susan, who took them with a dubious look. "These are some of the Witch's papers, but we can't work out what they mean."
Susan made a face; Lucy was sure she wouldn't even want to touch the Witch's personal things. The ink was dark: a bold and slanting hand on coarse paper. They'd seen very little paper in Narnia, and Lucy wondered where it came from, and who made it. "I don't know, Peter," said Susan, looking at the writing. "It's mostly numbers and notes. 3,000 C, 200/4 mo. That could be anything."
"It could be," said Edmund, dropping down to sit between Lucy and Susan on an unsteady log that Lucy had already fallen off twice. He smelled sweaty: Lucy wrinkled her nose, but he didn't notice. "But it's clearly something important. Those figures look like money, for one. I don't know what C is, but-"
Tumnus sat up suddenly, and Lucy started to fall over until he caught her arm. "C? That's likely Calormene crescents, King Edmund. They're recognized in many ports, or so I always heard."
"Is that a lot, then? 3,000 crescents?" asked Susan. "And what is the 200 for four months she's selling-or buying?"
Edmund dropped his chin into his palm. "And why did she have such a store of goods here, if there was so little trade with the outside world?" He waved a hand to the east, where the bales and barrels and boxes were all piled (well-guarded by two Centaurs after one of the Dwarfs had tried to carry off a barrel of wine last night) . They had not seemed like so much, distributed throughout the castle in many halls and storerooms, but all in one place, they amounted to a great deal indeed.
The fish were done frying; Tumnus served them out while everyone thought about the question. Finally Peter said, "I think both questions have the same answer, and I'm pretty sure we won't like it, whatever it is."
Edmund woke to water dripping on his face. He groaned and opened his eyes; it was still dark, and it was raining. His blankets were damp and getting damper, and his wet hair clung to his face and neck.
When he had struggled to his feet and over to the fire, the situation wasn't much better. The campsite was trampled and muddy, with bits of cast-off equipment littering the area, and the fires were dead or fizzling. It looked like a field after a carnival had ended and the vans had all gone away. Of the hundred-plus soldiers and prisoners who had been there yesterday morning, only Torvus, Silversharp with half a dozen Centaurs, and the Oathsworn were left. The rest of the company had departed for their various homes yesterday afternoon.
Yesterday had been a dry, if humid, late summer day; but today was dreary and wet, rain falling steadily from a lowering grey sky. Susan was snappish, Peter monosyllabic, and Lucy distractible. Even Rhea, normally unflappable under any conditions, looked wilted, her ears down and her wet coat revealing just how skinny she was. At length, with many last-minute interruptions (including the happy discovery of rough woolen cloaks in the Witch's stores, which Edmund half-decided Aslan intended for him to find), they were assembled, packs on their backs, around the firepit for one last cup of hot tea before they departed.
Finally, Peter tossed the dregs of his tea into the fire and stuffed the cup into his pack. "Let's go."
Edmund sighed, but it wasn't going to get any better the longer they stayed here, either. He looked down at his boots, which were held onto his feet by strips of rawhide, in despair. His toes stuck out the front and the sole flapped loose on the left foot. Bindle had promised there was a small Dwarf community on the other side of the Great River where Edmund and Lucy could get some boots, but they had to get there first.
"King, are you sure?" asked Windcaller one last time, as they made their farewells and left the trampled mud of the campsite for the equally-wet but less slick grass of the field. "I could detail one of my Centaurs-"
Peter just shook his head, not even looking aside, and Susan said, her voice more gentle than it had been over breakfast, "Thank you, Windcaller, but no. We have decided it's best to go on as we started. But we will send a message if we need anything, by Sallowpad or one of the Magpies. Aslan will not lead us astray."
No more than he has already, Edmund thought darkly. Then he flushed: Aslan had died to save his life; the least he could do was be gracious about the terrible weather.
"Well, at least it's warm," said Lucy cheerfully from beside him, tripping along in her similarly-abused boots, and Edmund snorted.
She was right, but it still would have been nice to have dry feet.
It was a long walk to the Great River, cutting across country for the most part, which meant slogging up steep rocky grades and down slick hillsides, catching at the brush to keep from slipping and falling all the way to the bottom. Peter had the bit in his teeth, driving them on in Rhea's wake like something awful was chasing them. But Edmund suspected Peter felt something awful loomed ahead, and they had to beat it, what ever it was.
After a quick lunch (cold flat-bread and fish Torvus had caught in the stream that morning), which they ate huddled together in the shelter of a great pine, Rhea took them down into a marshy valley. There was no trail through the marsh, just a series of tussocks a little higher than the surrounding land, and they had to jump from one to the next like pieces on a game board. When they got to the other side at last, they were all drenched with sweat and their feet and legs were splattered with mud and decaying vegetation.
"Let's rest," suggested Edmund, and for once, Peter nodded agreement before slumping against the trunk of a tree. Rhea lay down and began worrying at something between her toes, and Susan helped Lucy empty the mud out of her boots.
Edmund considered taking off his boots but realized he would likely never get them back on. He was staring at the mud under his toenails when Peter said casually, his eyes closed, "I talked to Stormcoat about Whiterush Vale."
Oh, thought Edmund. He flushed hot, then cold, remembering the conversation with Stormcoat and Silversharp, in which the two Centaurs had set out clearly all the very many ways in which Edmund had bungled the battle. He'd known it was bad at the time, but going over the details with the two experienced soldiers had been like living it all over again.
"Uh-huh," he said, finally, and plucked at some grass stuck to the knee of his breeches. "Did he tell you how many Narnians I got killed because I thought I knew what I was doing?"
Peter didn't open his eyes, for which Edmund was grateful. "None of us know what we're doing, Ed."
"Stormcoat does," said Edmund miserably. "And Torvus and Fraxinus and Spearfast and-"
"And you know how they know that?" interrupted Peter, and this time he did open his eyes: they were shockingly blue, in the grey light filtering through the low clouds. "Ed, they knew how to fight a battle because they were officers in the Witch's army."
Fraxinus? "No, that doesn't-but they-" and then Edmund stopped talking, and thought about it, while Peter watched him. With the Winter closing the borders, no other army could have been in Narnia. Where else could Oreius and Torvus and Spearfast have served? He chewed on his lip, thinking, and imagined the moment they realized that Aslan had come, and they could be free, if they fought against their former comrades. "Oh," he said at last, not looking at Peter.
"We have a lot to learn," said Peter, sounding (for once) like a schoolboy from Finchley. "But at least we don't have that behind us."
Well, you don't, thought Edmund, but didn't say it. He felt a little better, though.
They came to the Great River in the mid-afternoon; the rain had let up and the light had improved by the time they came down out of the woods to the broad and trampled swale by the fords. They were far upstream of Beruna still, and there was a great deal of debris caught in the trees and bushes along the riverside. From the look of it, the water was still well above its normal level, and it was running fast. On the far side of the river Edmund saw more forest, and then steep hills to the southwest.
"This is where we cross?" asked Lucy, looking nervous. "Aren't there any bridges, Rhea?"
Rhea slanted a look at her before pacing down to the water's edge. "No, queen," she said. "There are no bridges in Narnia: the river-gods and naiads would not allow it. And during the winter, of course, there was no need."
"Pete, do you have any rope?" asked Edmund, looking at the water. Peter didn't, but Susan pulled a length out of her pack with a pursed smile.
Lucy was secured to Susan and Peter both, and with one last shrug-they couldn't really get much wetter than they already were-they hiked their packs high on their shoulders and stepped into the water. At which point Susan said, "Wait!" in a sharp voice and they all stopped.
"What?" said Edmund, feeling grumpy. He wiggled his toes in the chill water.
Susan shook her head, crouched down, and rested her hand on the surface of the water. "Hello," she said, in a carrying tone. "My name is Susan Pevensie and these are my brothers and sister, and our guide Rhea the Wolf. May we cross here?"
Edmund blinked and Peter looked baffled, but Lucy bounced, grinning. "Smart, Su!"
The water in the center of the river, about thirty yards out, swirled, and then a man rose out of the water-except not a man, he was just water, shaped like a man, with a great beard and broad shoulders. "Long has it been since a Human begged leave to enter my realm," he said, in a voice that hissed and chattered like water running over a rocky streambed. "Your courtesy is appreciated, Daughter of Eve."
Susan straightened and then dipped as graceful a curtsey as one could wish (while one was ankle-deep in a river and carrying a loaded pack, a bow and quiver, and sundry other weapons around one's person). "Do we have your leave, sir? It is important that we cross here: we are called on urgent business, and may not delay."
The river-god's head dipped in reply, and he began to disperse into the water. As he went, though, he spoke one last time. "My brother warned me of the fire-bearer-they have great need of you in the hills, if you are indeed Aslan's chosen. Pass, with my good will."
"Fire-bearer?" asked Edmund, but the river-god was gone, and no one answered.
They slept that night, unexpectedly, under a roof. Granted, a low turf roof, in the barn of a Dwarf village clinging to the last hill before the great grasslands of southern Narnia. The village of Grass Hill was tiny and quiet, the Dwarfs reticent to near-silence, and they only said more than two words at a time after Susan revealed a few silver and gold pieces she had discovered in a purse in the Witch's castle. Rhea had warned them not to mention their names: Grass Hill had been considered loyal to the Witch, but from the evidence Edmund couldn't tell that the Dwarfs had done very well from the deal.
So Susan negotiated for a place to stay and some other supplies, with the Dwarfs being very careful to ask no questions. A wizened old woman measured Edmund and Lucy's feet, and promised new boots in the morning. And then an equally-wizened man escorted them to the barn, which was the only building in the village with a roof high enough for Humans for stand in; later a procession of Dwarf children came to the barn door with buckets of hot water and a pot of a savory fish-and-vegetable stew.
Edmund's casual questioning revealed that none of them knew anything about a "fire-bearer".
As before, Edmund had the last watch: he woke early, from dreams in which the dead eyes of a young Centaur stared at him from the flames of a pyre. When Peter came to wake him, he rose without a word and went to the barn door, where he stood unmoving until dawn brightened the eastern sky.
The next days were much like the first, although Edmund no longer had occasion to complain about his feet: his new boots were well-made and sturdy, and nearly as comfortable as his slippers in England. (Lucy adored hers as well, not least for the worked lions and lilies that climbed up the shafts. That detail made Edmund suspect they had not hidden their identities nearly as well as they'd hoped.) The weather remained changeable, going from warm and rainy to blustery to clear and cool in the course of a single afternoon; this would have been less of a problem if they had been able to sleep indoors, or under a tree.
The great southern plain, however, had no inns or friendly Dwarf villages, or even trees; merely mile after wearying mile of rich green grasses, dotted with wildflowers and the occasional scrub-like tree. At night they huddled together under their blankets in the rain, and all their clothing was damp for days on end, though the weather remained warm.
Rhea led them on a steady course southwest, which Edmund surreptitiously confirmed every evening and morning, standing barefoot next to his bedroll. Peter, oddly, didn't seem to need to do even that: his face grew pinched and worried, and he was always the last to agree to a halt (even when Lucy was obviously dragging).
They talked in the evenings, but something about the landscape kept them quiet, even Lucy, who would ordinarily have a comment on everything she saw-perhaps because other than the grass and the occasional bird, there was little to see. They saw horses once, in the distance (or Horses: it was impossible to tell), and another time a small herd of Buffalo passed them. The Buffalo had no news and little interest in Humans; on the other hand, the trampled grass they left behind made for easier walking for a time.
Late on the second day after they left Grass Hill, the ground began to rise, and by noon on the third day they were off the plain and into wooded rolling hills that grew steeper as they traveled. It grew more difficult to see the mountains as the trees grew denser.
"We'll need to be careful," said Rhea, when they stopped for lunch. Peter wasn't willing to waste time gathering greens or nuts; they were down to lengths of dried beef and waybread so hard it needed to soak in hot water to eat. Edmund chewed on his leathery meal and tried not to think about sandwiches.
"Of anything in particular?" asked Susan. She picked up a piece of meat, sighed, and put it back down in her lap.
Rhea scratched at an ear. "The Dryads in this region were thought to be among the most loyal to the Witch; I don't know what their allegiances are now that she's dead. We should keep quiet, and keep on guard."
"Oh," said Lucy, and cast an uneasy look at the trees about them.
But for all their increased apprehension, they might well have been walking through an entirely empty country. The next day they began the real climb up into the mountains; the terrain became rougher, the hills steeper. Rhea had never been here before, and without any guide other than the indefinable pull of Narnia itself, they found themselves wasting time in box canyons and following game trails that went nowhere.
"So I was thinking," said Peter, as they followed Rhea across a broad meadow in a brief moment of sun. The grass and brush was wet, their clothes were wet, and Edmund could even feel his toes beginning to squish a bit inside his new boots.
"Well, that's a change," said Edmund, and Lucy laughed.
Peter ignored him, and stepped easily over a large puddle that Lucy had to jump. "I was thinking that if I were an immortal Witch with enormous power and the ability to take over an entire country, I wouldn't be satisfied with just sitting in a small castle and turning people into stone." He said it casually, but Edmund had seen his face in the room with the fur bales: Peter took nothing about the Witch lightly, not any more.
"I was thinking about that, too," said Susan. She was breathing heavily and her face was flushed: she seemed to be having more trouble with the altitude than the others were. "And you remember, she had an army, after all. Not just the Secret Police, but an actual army."
"Rhea, who did the Witch's army fight?" asked Lucy. Which, Edmund realized, was a very good question.
One of Rhea's ears twitched, which Edmund recognized as a sign of surprise. "Giants, sometimes," she said. "But the last time the whole army was called up was several years ago, for the Marsh-Wiggle Revolt."
"So she did use them against Narnians," Edmund said. He scratched a bug bite on his elbow. "What happened to the Marsh-Wiggles?"
Rhea swung her head around and stared at him. "Right," said Edmund, feeling a bit dim.
"I did hear, though," said Rhea, "that she had begun gathering troops, even before you Humans arrived."
Susan tripped over a rock in the path, swung her arms wildly, and recovered her balance. Pushing her hair out of her face, she asked, "What, before we or Aslan arrived, she was already putting an army together? What for?"
The Wolf paused to sniff at a bush at the side of the narrow track, and then looked back, shaking her head. "I think the only one who might have known was my littermate, and he's past telling us now. But we're lucky she did, because full on half of them were your Army. Things would have gone badly for you and Aslan both if you'd had to wait until they'd gathered in. Instead, once word came that Aslan was here at last, they deserted all together."
"Oh," said Peter, looking disturbed, and Edmund had to agree with him. It was unsettling to learn just how close they had come to complete catastrophe-and it made him wonder how much Aslan had known.
The climbing finally ended on the fifth day after they left Grass Hill, when they scrambled up a last rocky slope to find themselves on the rim of a broad, rolling valley. It was an enormous oblong dish, running east-west, with mountains to the south and northwest, climbing from green (and red and yellow) forested slopes to stone and snow-covered tips. Due west loomed the tallest peak of all, its summit wreathed in clouds, which Rhea identified as Farsight Peak. "Just south of the mountain is Telmar Pass; there's a road that goes down into the land of Telmar, but I've never been there."
They continued on west, along the northern edge of the valley, following an occasional trail when they found one going the right direction, but often just striking straight across country, obeying the wordless sense that this way was the way they must go. Once or twice they saw a homestead or patch of tilled ground, but saw no one to speak to (not even a Talking Squirrel), nor any farm animals. The homesteads appeared deserted, but without detouring for longer than any of them felt comfortable, it was hard to tell for sure.
According to Rhea, this area had never been thickly settled, even before the Witch, for the winters were heavy and the spring came late. Still, this emptiness was unexpected, and a bit disturbing. In late afternoon they saw smoke to the south, and Peter agreed to a detour: it was the ruin of a rambling low house, still smoking in the wet air. Rhea sniffed, and dug into the ash and rubble of charred beams.
"Yesterday or the day before," she reported, her ears swiveling uneasily. "Some Fauns went off that way," and she nodded east, the way they'd come, "and some Humans and horses went west."
"Humans!" Peter looked shocked.
"More Rebels?" Susan suggested, but her voice was dubious. She'd strung her bow and had it in her hand, one finger rubbing the worked red leather of the grip.
Edmund shook his head, which over the course of the day had grown heavier and thicker, as though it were filling with water. He wanted to blame the altitude: they'd been climbing steadily for days, but he suspected it was something else. "The Witch's loyalists might do this, but I don't think that's why we're here."
"Ed's right," said Lucy, her face drawn. Even with her new boots, she had found the pace hard to keep, although she had never complained. Edmund and Susan had made sure to let Lucy sleep as late as possible in the mornings before waking her for breakfast, and insisted she eat more than she wanted, to keep up her strength. "It's bigger than Rebels," Lucy went on, turning to look towards Mount Farsight. She waved a hand uncertainly. "It's... it's huge."
There was nothing else they could do there, and so they pressed on, pushing west, deeper into the valley, until the mountains loomed close above. Near nightfall, they passed through a meadow where the grasses were scorched and blackened from the center of the meadow to several trees along the edge of the wood. The ground was damp from the recent rain, which was probably why the fire had gone no farther, but Edmund suspected it was a near thing. Lucy went pale, and Edmund realized there had probably been Dryads living there, who were now dead or hurt or something; he didn't know and didn't want to ask, either.
Peter looked grim and Susan worried, but no one was in the mood to speculate. On top of the worry, Edmund had a slowly growing sense of pressure, of anticipation, as if he were a sprinter at the mark, waiting for the starting gun to go off. He could feel something momentous just around the corner. He couldn't tell if it was something good or something bad-just that it was important, and frightening. And that it was his, somehow, not Peter's or Susan's or Lucy's: just his, the way Firefoot's death was his; and that moment in the wood with the Witch's knife at his throat; and the long talk with Aslan on the hillside, when he felt as though he had been unbuttoned like a coat, exposing his soul for the Lion's examination.
Just at sunset, Peter finally let them stop, in a small clearing near the top of a rise. Mount Farsight towered above them, the last rays of the sun reflecting off its snowy peak, although the valley floor was dark with shadows. Edmund dropped his pack and began gathering firewood, but as he bent to pick up a stick, Lucy cried out and pointed up at the mountain. They all looked up.
A flame spouted on the mountainside, a flash of brilliance against the grey stone and white snow. They all stared at it, mouths open, while the flame flickered, and then disappeared.
And then re-appeared, some distance from the mountaintop.
A long-winged shadow passed overhead, while they craned their necks, staring up into the sky.
"Well," said Edmund, and licked his lips, which had gone dry. "Are there ... Are there dragons in Narnia, Rhea?"
The small hours of the night in the mountains of Southwest Narnia were much colder than down on the plain, and they had (for obvious reasons) put the fire out as soon as supper was cooked. Edmund wrapped his cloak more closely about himself and wished for mittens. The cloud cover had finally cleared, and the stars were huge and brilliant overhead.
Dragons. Nobody, not even Aslan himself, had ever mentioned dragons. Rhea hadn't any idea where it came from: she had finally shrugged and admitted complete ignorance on the issue.
"Perhaps it came from Telmar, or from the Western Wild, after the Witch died," Lucy had suggested.
Edmund supposed it didn't really matter: what mattered was that it was here, and it was burning out Faun holdings, setting fire to the forest (and killing any Dryads who happened to be there), and making who knew what other kind of trouble. If no one stopped it, presumably it would just keep on burning, and might even graduate to burning and eating Narnians. If it hadn't already. Just because they'd found no bodies didn't mean nobody had died.
What did it take to kill a dragon?
Up the mountain, there was a bright spark in the darkness.
Dragons were dangerous; and Peter was bound to go after it himself. Edmund knew this like he knew the way Peter put his socks on (left foot first, then right, before he put his trousers on) and the way he disliked sugar in his tea: Peter would not allow anyone else to risk themselves, not against something as enormously dangerous as a dragon. He would go up against it, like the forthright and noble king he was-and he would fail. Edmund could see it, almost like a film: Peter with his sword and shield, versus the dragon's fire and claws and teeth. Maybe someday Peter would be strong enough, skilled enough, to tackle a dragon: but not yet.
That wouldn't stop him, though; Edmund knew. Peter would take on the dragon, because that was what kings did, after all. And Peter would die.
And that was not acceptable.
Aslan had died for Edmund; and so had Firefoot. And Fauns, Centaurs, Dwarfs, and Cheetahs had all died at the battle of Whiterush Vale, under Edmund's command. All lives that he carried, somehow, like stones in his backpack. He could carry the rest of them, maybe, given time enough to grow into the weight. But Peter? Peter would be too much.
This once, Edmund thought, he wasn't going to give Peter the chance to be the hero.
It was early in his watch, at least two hours before dawn. Edmund looked at the others: they were still asleep, Susan with her head pillowed on Rhea's flank and Lucy curled against Peter's back. Moving quietly, he opened his pack and removed his clothes and gear, keeping only his spare socks and the last of the dried beef and waybread, and his water skin. Just in case, he took one of Susan's spare knives, which gave him four, plus the sword. He wished he had a spear or a spade, considered trying to make one, but decided it would take too long. Peter wasn't going to give him much of a head start.
At least he had good boots. He looked at his family, and thought about Mother and Father briefly, but had to stop because they were so far away, and he had a long way to go in the darkness. The ground was cold beneath him when he squatted to touch it, but the call was still there, stronger than ever, reverberating up the bones in his arm like a drumbeat or the rattle of a lorry in the street.
It called him up the mountain, and so he shrugged his pack onto his back, checked the hang of his sword, and followed it.
Something snuffled in Susan's ear. Something cold and a little wet, like a dog's-oh. She opened her eyes and looked up into anxious dark eyes over a grey-and-black muzzle.
"He's gone, queen!" said Rhea. "Your brother's run off."
"Peter?" asked Susan, throwing back her blanket. It was warm, the sun high in the eastern sky: they had overslept by rather a lot. She looked over at Peter, but he was still a broad-shouldered lump under his dull green cloak, curled on the ground on the far side of the small firepit. "Edmund!" But Rhea was right: Edmund's blankets were empty, and there was no sign of him in the little clearing.
"I can track him," said Rhea, when they had all woken, Peter as foul-tempered as Susan had ever seen him-although not without good reason. "He's gone that way," Rhea said, with an unnecessary nod towards the mountain. "Maybe three hours ago; the scent's just beginning to stale."
Peter scowled, upending his pack on the ground. "I'll take Rhea and go after Ed. Su, I want you and Lucy to backtrack to better cover: we're too close to the dragon here, and I'm worried what it'll do if Ed provokes it. We'll meet you back at that stream we crossed yesterday afternoon. Keep under cover, and see if you can find a Magpie, will you? I don't like it that we haven't seen any."
"But Peter!" protested Lucy, and then subsided at a savage look from her brother. Peter wasn't going to let Lucy anywhere near a dragon, Susan knew, and Lucy couldn't be left alone. It was the obvious solution, even if it did separate them again-something that bothered Susan more every time it happened. They were always safest together.
"If he gets himself killed," said Peter through gritted teeth, "I'll-I'll kill him myself!" He clipped Rhindon to a steel ring and slid it up the strap to his shoulder.
"Try not to," Susan said. "You know he's only done it because he knew you were going to." But all she got in return for that was a roll of Peter's eyes.
And then they were gone, disappearing into the brush at a quick trot, Peter carrying little but the sword on his shoulder, two water skins, and some strips of dried meat in a pouch at his belt.
"Well," said Susan, realizing with a sinking feeling that she and Lucy would have to carry not only their own packs, but their brothers' abandoned equipment as well. "We might as well get started."
A cup of tea would have been a lovely thing to start the morning with, but they were almost out of the tea Tumnus had given them, and besides lighting another fire was too much of a risk. So they washed up, ate cold waybread and some nuts they'd picked the day before, and packed up everything for another long walk. (At least Edmund had stopped carrying about the books from Cair Paravel: he had sent them back to the castle with Windcaller.) Lucy complained, just a little bit, but they were both really too worried about Edmund to concentrate on anything else. As they walked slowly eastward, keeping in the shelter of the trees, Lucy kept looking up through the branches at the sky above.
"Do you think dragons talk, like Beavers and Wolves do, Susan?" she asked, an hour or so later, as they picked their way past a patch of thorns.
Susan said, "I don't know. All the other magical creatures seem to, so why not dragons?"
"But if it talks, it must be a person, so why is it flying around setting fire to things?" Lucy asked, and to that Susan had no answer.
Near noon Lucy was getting that pinched look she had when she was too stubborn to admit she was tired, so Susan stopped in the lee of a fallen pine, and opened her pack to investigate the possibilities for lunch. Not that they had many options now: they were down to leathery dried meat and the waybread they'd bought from the Dwarfs at Grass Hill, with the occasional nut or handful of berries. Susan decided that, if the weather stayed fine, she would try to shoot a rabbit tonight-assuming there were any rabbits about. They had seen very little animal life, and no Talking Beasts, since about this time the day before. She assumed it was because of the dragon, which must have chased away nearly everything in the neighborhood.
"More meat!" she said, trying to put on a good face for Lucy, but Lucy was looking back the way they had come, her expression intent.
Just a moment later, Lucy cried, "Rhea!" and leaped to her feet.
Susan swung about, hand reaching for her bow, but Lucy was right, it was indeed Rhea coming through the trees some distance away. The Wolf was moving fast, her head hanging low and her tongue flapping in the air as she ran. Peter was nowhere in sight.
"Oh, no," said Susan, and stood up as well. "Lucy, put your pack on," she ordered, as Rhea approached, and to her surprise, Lucy obeyed immediately. The last time Rhea had come running like this, the news had not been good; Susan tried not to hold it against the Wolf.
Rhea slowed as she approached, and finally stood before the two girls, gasping for breath, her sides heaving with exertion. There was blood on her side: Susan realized Lucy must not have seen it or she would already have taken out her cordial. "Men!" gasped Rhea. "Humans-they took King Peter. There were too many, I could not stop them."
"Men!" repeated Susan in astonishment. "But who? And where did they take him?"
"And why?" asked Lucy.
"Water?" asked the Wolf, first, and Susan poured out what she had into their one pot. Rhea drank thirstily, staining the water pink: Susan realized Rhea must have fought with the Men who had taken Peter, and done some damage besides. Finally the water was gone, and Rhea began to tell her story.
They had not gone far, only a mile or two, but had traveled more slowly than Peter liked because Edmund had tried to lose them in the rocks. Rhea had had to cast about several times to pick up Edmund's trail. At length they had found themselves on a wide but overgrown track, which Rhea had identified as the road to Telmar Pass. Edmund had followed it for some distance, and so they stayed on his trail, although Rhea had noticed that there had been other traffic, including Humans, on it recently. She had mentioned it to Peter, but of course catching Edmund was the most important thing.
"Except they were still there," said Susan at this point, and Rhea nodded.
"We weren't trying to be quiet, and we walked right into them: they were waiting in a copse of trees along the road, downwind of us. Maybe a dozen of them. Your brother didn't have time to draw his sword, but he cut two of them with a knife before they knocked the dagger out of his hand. I killed one," Rhea drew back her lips in distaste, "-but there were too many, and they had spears and bows. They drove me off."
"And you left?" demanded Lucy, outraged.
Rhea's hackles lifted, just a little. "No," she snapped. "But I got out of sight, and followed them some way before coming back. They were rough with him, but he was alive when I left them, and you needed to know where he was more than I needed to die for my oath."
Lucy flushed with instant contrition. "Oh. Oh, you're right. I'm sorry, Rhea, I shouldn't have said that."
Her heart was pounding so loudly Susan could nearly feel it shaking her body; Peter was captured by Humans and Edmund was Aslan-knew-where. "Where did they take him?" she asked. She fingered the arrows in her quiver: she had those twelve, and another twenty in her pack that she had taken from the Witch's stores. They weren't the fine red-fletched shafts from Father Christmas, but she suspected they would fly straight enough.
Swinging her head around, Rhea looked towards the south wall of the valley, where the mountains along the Archenland border raised their snowy heads. "They went east on the main road from the pass, and then south on a smaller track. There's some villages in the southern foothills, Dwarfs, mostly. Could be where they're going, unless they mean to cross the border to Archenland. But I don't think so."
"Why not?" If Archenland had taken Peter, Archenland would pay for it. Susan was already calculating how long it would take a Magpie to reach Stormcoat in the north reaches, and Silversharp on her way to Beruna.
Rhea was watching her very carefully, a little nervously, as if she could smell Susan's anger. "They smelled wrong. Archenlanders are much like Narnians, or so I always heard. These Humans are different. They smell of mules and coal-dust and food I don't recognize."
Lucy looked close to tears. "Oh, Susan, what shall we do? Edmund and Peter?"
Damn Edmund! Susan had lost all the sympathy she'd summoned up this morning for his decision. If he hadn't run off, this would never have happened-although instead the Men could have captured them all, which didn't bear thinking of. Well, there was nothing for it: she had to make a decision. She closed her eyes in thought, breathing deeply, trying to let her heart stop racing.
Edmund was up the mountain, facing down a dragon, and that was clearly important-Susan was pretty sure the dragon was why Narnia had called them all this way. But Susan didn't think there was much she could do to help: she couldn't imagine having any impact on a creature so immense, armed with claws and teeth and flame. But Humans-Humans Susan knew. Her arrows would work as well against Humans as they did against Minotaurs and Harpies. And Humans in Narnia, kidnapping travelers: well, that was important too, even if one of the travelers weren't her brother, and the High King.
"All right," she said, and opened her eyes. "Rhea, can I find the road without you to guide me?" When the Wolf nodded, Susan went on, "Then this is what we'll do. You two keep going east: I'm sending you for help. Find a Magpie, see if you can spot Sallowpad, raise the countryside, whatever you can. If there are bandits kidnapping people, we need to take care of them-and rescue Peter. Edmund," she took a breath and let it out shakily, "-Edmund shall have to look out for himself." She felt cold, despite the warmth of the afternoon sun.
Lucy gasped, her face going pale, and Susan put her hand on Lucy's shoulder. "Lucy, you must promise me. You must not go after Edmund. It's too dangerous. We must trust he knows what he's doing, and we have to help Peter."
She saw Lucy's lip quiver, but then she straightened her shoulders and put her hand on the knife at her belt. "We're all he's got," said Lucy, and Susan could have hugged her, except that she was close enough to tears already.
Rhea was right: the road was easy to find, although Susan wasn't sure she hit it at the same spot Rhea and Peter did. It was broad, with rutted tracks overgrown by grassy weeds; it had been, after all, more than a century since last any wagons came this way. Susan had learned a bit about tracking since coming to Narnia, but she didn't need it now, as the road ran clear and open along the valley floor, and periodically she saw the print of a hoof or a booted foot in a soft patch of ground. She stayed out of sight in the trees along the road as much as she could, which slowed her down, but better that than to be captured as well.
The road led roughly southeast, following the curves of the valley floor, and after what felt like several miles, forked near the top of a rise. The left-hand track turned and cut directly east down the valley until it disappeared into the trees. But the hoof- and boot-prints followed the right-hand track, out of sight around a stand of pines. Susan followed it, hesitated, and then tucked herself behind a tree and peered forward. From this vantage, she could see the road drop smoothly into a small valley tucked between two arms of the mountain. There were cleared fields here and there, and buildings at the south end, where the ground climbed into a steep headwall forested with stands of pine and aspen, the golden aspen leaves flickering in the light breeze.
Figures and horses moved about on the valley floor-quite a lot of them. And the people looked strange: too big for Dwarfs, and they moved wrong for Fauns. It took Susan a disturbing length of time to determine that they were, in fact, Humans. She realized, with a catch of her breath, that these were the first Humans she'd seen, other than her own family, since she'd come to Narnia. How odd.
That must be where they'd taken Peter.
It was late afternoon by the time she had worked her way cautiously along the ridgeline, and then down the hillside through pine trees which were not dense enough to hide her as completely as she would like. She had stashed her small pack in the brush above, and then smeared mud on her face and hands, grateful that her tunic and cloak were dull brown. At length, she found a position behind a fallen tree just above the valley floor; it was deep in shadow and so long as she didn't move, she was sure she would not be spotted.
Closer to, she had a much better look at what was going on. Half a dozen stone and wood buildings were clustered against the headwall, and after a few moments Susan realized they reminded her of the settlement at Pattering Hill. This was a Dwarf village, and that largest building was the central hall, built into the mountain and covering the main entrance to the mines, which probably wound away underground, heading deep into the mountains.
But instead of Dwarfs, the figures about the village, tending horses and going in and out of tents and practicing swordplay on the green, were all Human. And the Humans were not what Susan expected of Humans in Aslan's world: they looked unsavory. Most of them were men, unshaven, wearing stained and patched clothing and mismatched armor. They wore their hair caught back in rough plaits, and were all armed with swords and knives, though a few carried crossbows. They had dark hair and olive skin, and if she had seen one of them on the street in England, Susan might have thought he was from Italy or Spain.
A few women moved among them, dressed more uniformly in green brigandines over leather breeches: they too were armed, although mostly with bows and small axes, rather than swords. They were generally darker-skinned than the men, and wore their hair in complicated braids bound up on the back of their heads. As Susan watched, a tall woman swung lightly up onto a grey horse and cantered off down the valley bareback. Two of the men watched her go: one of them said something to the other (Susan was too far away to hear what), and they both laughed raucously, disregarding the glare of one of the other women.
Time passed as she watched, hoping for a glimpse of Peter or some evidence that he was here at all. The smell of cooking meat and baking bread began to drift across the village. Susan nearly groaned, and at length fished a small piece of dried meat out of her pocket. She chewed on it slowly, making it last. It would have to do: she didn't know how long she would be here, and she'd left nearly everything but her bow, knives, and water skin at the top of the ridge.
Two or three riders came into the yard nearest Susan: more of the green-clad women soldiers. They unsaddled and tied their horses to the nearby fence and joined a group of the men squatting around a fire that looked like it had been lit more for morale than for cooking, as the smell of food was coming from one of the buildings.
At length Susan saw four Red Dwarfs, all men, carrying great trays in their small hands, emerge from the central hall. They had barely crossed half the yard before they were surrounded by soldiers, shouting, laughing, and grabbing at the food.
When the trays were empty, the Dwarfs returned to the hall, followed by oaths and kicks from some of the men. The smallest Dwarf fell flat on his face, and lay there for a moment before pushing himself to his feet and following his companions back into the hall. The door slammed shut behind them.
So, thought Susan. The Dwarfs were not volunteers, or even hosts. These were Narnians, and they were being kicked and treated like slaves. She thought of Rikald in the freezing water under Pattering Hill, and Bindle, humiliated by his baldness but still marching off to Cair Paravel with Torvus and Windcaller, and her fists clenched. But leaping to her feet in rage wouldn't help: she needed information, and a plan.
More time passed. After night fell, the voices around the fire grew louder, as the soldiers told stories and shared drinks from a great clay pot. Several times the talk sparked into argument, and once knives were drawn, but a tall man in mail came out of a large blue tent and yelled at the fighters, and after some grumbling peace was restored. There was no evidence of Peter anywhere, although Susan wondered if he could be inside the mountain with the Dwarfs. If he was, she had no way of knowing where, and no way of getting to him without being seen.
At length, when the light of the waning moon began to creep over the ridge to the east, Susan sighed, trying not to despair, and began to wriggle backwards.
She was stiff from hours of stillness, cold, hungry, and desperately worried. But it wasn't safe to stay here. She had to get out of this valley, choked with enemies, and figure out what to do. Perhaps Lucy and Rhea would have found some help, she thought, or perhaps Edmund would have returned-but she knew, deep inside, that they could not have. Not so soon. This problem was for Susan to solve, and she didn't even know where to start.
It seemed unfair: rescuing people and sneaking around in the woods was all very well when one had a troop of Centaurs and a brother at one's side. Alone, it was much less exciting, and much more frightening.
She cast one last glance back at the village, and then stopped, for there was new movement at the far side of the yard. Two soldiers, one with a torch, were manhandling a shorter figure at the doorway of a small building Susan had taken for a storage shed. The prisoner, too far away for Susan to see his face, had hair that glittered gold in the torchlight. Peter. All she could tell, between the distance and the darkness, was that he was upright and walking, oh thank the Lion, he was alive. He moved stiffly, either from injuries or because he was bound, and the guards escorted him around the building towards a spot Susan had seen a number of the others visit during the course of the evening. The latrine pits, of course.
So they were feeding him and letting him relieve himself: it could be worse. Whatever it was they wanted, they must still think they could get it from him.
And now that Susan knew where he was being held, she had a plan.
The moon was high, but very little light got through the trees as Susan edged her way along the steep hillside. As she moved, thorns and twigs grabbed at her clothes and hair, she caught the end of her bow in the branches, and she tripped over more than one root or downed tree. The noise seemed to echo through the forest, which was almost silent: no night-birds called, and the crickets chirped hesitantly, as if afraid. The temperature had dropped with the sun: her hands were chilled and in the brief moments of light through the trees, Susan could see her breath puffing in the cold air. She hoped Edmund and Peter were warm; Lucy at least had Rhea with her.
The valley broadened as she moved north towards the road: this was where the Dwarfs had planted fields of corn and other crops. If she tried to cross the valley here, she would be dangerously exposed, but it was some distance from the village, and the soldiers should soon be asleep. Once across the valley and in the trees on the far hillside, she could work her way closer to the shed where Peter was imprisoned, and ... Well, she wasn't sure what she would do, then. She would think of something. But she had to get there while it was still dark-there would be no way to get to Peter once the sun had risen.
There was an opening in the trees ahead, and a dip where a gully had formed in the spring thaw. Susan stepped into the clear, picking twigs out of her hair, and turned to tug her cloak free from a thorn-bush.
When she turned back around, there was an arrow pointed at her eye, and a dagger only an inch from her belly.
His head was throbbing. That was the first thing Peter realized, as he swam back to wakefulness: his head hurt, and he wanted to vomit. He managed to keep himself from groaning, but the nausea was overpowering: he twisted over onto his side just in time to avoid spewing all over himself.
He couldn't twist far, though: as he coughed and gagged, he wrenched at his hands, which were bound together behind his back. It made it difficult to move away from the pool of barely-digested jerky and waybread that he had gulped down before setting out after Edmund.
He spat one last time and, rolling awkwardly, struggled up into a sitting position before looking about. He was in a dark room on a dirt floor, stiff with bruises, and there was stabbing pain in his side that reminded him of the time he had cracked a rib playing rugby. He supposed he was lucky to be alive, although it was hard to feel grateful past the throbbing in his head.
"You finished?" said a low voice in the darkness, and Peter started. The movement made his head pound even worse.
"Who's that?"
A snort, and then a rustle, as of someone shifting their weight. "Just another prisoner, boy. I just want to know if I need to worry about you choking. I've no interest in sharing my quarters with a rotting body."
Peter blinked; as his eyes cleared, he saw that the space he was in was not completely dark: faint light came from a poorly-set plank door, which he assumed led to the outside. The glimmer didn't really illuminate the room, but it was enough to give him a sense of its size (small) and its condition (shabby). It seemed empty but for Peter and the shadowy figure on the other side of the room, which was evidently Human. He had a blurry memory of the brigands opening a shed door, and fighting against them desperately, as if there were a chance of escaping the dozens of armed men and women around him. They must have hit him on the head before throwing him in.
"What place is this?" he asked, hoping that given time, his head would clear. But the pain throbbed with his pulse.
"The shed? Is a shed. In the peaceful hamlet of Silver Pine Village." The voice was sardonic.
"Oh." It wasn't a name Peter recognized, but he was fairly sure he was still in Narnia. "How long have I been here?" He looked at the light from the door. It couldn't be the next day already, could it?
The other grunted. "Maybe an hour. What's your name?"
The brigands had asked him that, too, accompanying the questioning with blows and curses. Peter had told them nothing, but through the pounding in his head, he realized now that it was better to give them a name, even if not his name. Depending on who they'd spoken with, they might recognize the name Peter, and maybe even Pevensie.
"Wolfsbane," he said at last, making it sound grudging and resentful (it wasn't hard).
"Bit young for that, aren't you?"
Peter ground his teeth and let the silence stretch out. "Fine," said the other, and laughed. It was a light, ringing laugh, and to Peter's shock, revealed the other as a woman. "I'll give you your wolf, boy. And in exchange: my name is Eluned of Archenland. Where do you hail from?"
"Nowhere you'd know," he answered. But he noted that there were apparently Humans in Archenland. "Who are these bandits? Where are they from?"
Eluned snorted. "You're from far away indeed, boy, not to recognize Telmarine mercenaries. Although Beva's Troop isn't as well known outside Rhidia and Telmar, it's true."
"But why are they here? In Narnia?"
"Why do you think? The snow is gone, the borders are unguarded-why shouldn't they come, and see what there is to be taken?" was Eluned's answer. "Especially now that they've lost their employer. These days, the Witch's coffers are richer than any in Telmar, by all I've heard."
"But they can't just-just come across the border and take over a village!" protested Peter, and then felt stupid for saying it. After all, that was exactly what the Germans were doing in Europe, weren't they?
"Well, there's no one to stop them, is there?" Eluned's voice was breezy. "Certainly not those Dwarfs; they've got the poor fellows turning over their life's work, just to stay alive. Fancy the stuff they have in those tunnels! If I'd known, I'd have staked my claim long ago, Witch or no Witch."
Lion's mane, Peter was thirsty. "Claim? What do you mean?" He looked around the shed, but if there was a bucket of water, it was well-hidden, and he suspected any attempt to rise would end with him on his face again. He would wait to explore until his head stopped spinning.
Eluned's voice was breezy. "My claim to the throne, of course. After all, I'm the rightful heir."
The claim to the throne, of course. "Of course," Peter said slowly. He reached out with his fingers until he touched the splintery wood of the shed wall, and pushed himself backwards with his feet until he could lean against it. "Remind me-they hit me on the head, you know-remind me of why you're the rightful heir?"
"Well, of course I don't expect a peasant boy to know royal genealogy!" Eluned sounded amused. "The first king of Narnia was King Frank, and his son Col was the first king of Archenland. The royal house of Archenland is descended from Col, so it stands to reason that with no living heirs in Narnia, the throne must go to the nearest related claimant, which is me."
"And you are a member of the royal house of Archenland." Peter worked this out: there had been Human kings and queens in Narnia before the Witch; he remembered Rhea telling him the story of the last queen. But nobody, not even Aslan, had ever mentioned that there were potential heirs as close as the country next door. "And the Narnians? They've asked you to take the throne?" Stormcoat would not be pleased. Although Peter suspected that Rhea would just laugh. Rhea-was she alive? Had she followed the mercenaries, or was she left bleeding in the wood?
"Oh, a peasant who thinks he knows politics! And no, not that it matters. After all, they've been ensorcelled for a century: they probably don't know I exist. But I'm a princess of Archenland: they'll be happy enough to have a true Human on the throne. They can't seem to manage by themselves, poor creatures." Eluned sounded quite relaxed about the question, and unbothered by the fact that she was imprisoned in a shed by Telmarine brigands.
It was too much to think about, and beside the point of his immediate problem, Peter decided. "How did you get captured by the Telmarines?" He tugged at the bonds around his wrists, but they were too tight for him to move much. From what he could tell, they'd taken the spare dagger in his sleeve, but he couldn't reach his boot to see if Stormcoat's knife was still there.
"Stupidly," she said in a disgusted tone. "They jumped us on the road east of here: killed my men and shot my horse out from under me. But I took two of them with me, at least."
"All your men?" Maybe someone had survived to bring help. "Won't someone try to rescue you?"
"Rescue me? My brother will be so angry with me, he may well forbid anyone to try!" Although she sounded cheerfully defiant as she said it, there was a hint of fear in her voice. She wasn't as unconcerned as she wanted Peter to think.
"But-" said Peter, but shut his mouth, because the door opened to let in a flood of bright sunlight. The light hit him in the face and he winced, turning his head and squeezing his eyes shut.
"Food for the prisoners," said a rough voice, its accent familiar, and Peter squinted at the short figured silhouetted in the doorway: it was a Dwarf, carrying a large tray. He looked unhappy, and a guard prodded him forward with the butt of a spear.
But the Dwarf wouldn't look at Peter as he set down the tray, unwrapped half a loaf of bread and held out a pottery cup of water. "I can't drink that," said Peter, and shrugged his shoulders to indicate his bound hands. The Dwarf looked at the guard, who scowled and stepped forward. In a few moments he had loosened Peter's bonds enough to re-tie them in front, without giving Peter an opportunity to grab for a weapon. Which wouldn't have done much good, anyway, as there was another guard at the door, and Peter was still feeling sick and woozy.
But the sunlight did give Peter an opportunity to look at Eluned, who was lounging against the opposite wall of the shed as though she had not a care in the world. She was fair-skinned (if bruised), with long blonde hair in an unraveling plait, and was dressed more like the soldiers outside than any princess Peter had ever seen, in leather breeches and a woolen tunic. Her blood-spattered green surcoat was embroidered with a castle in silver thread.
Under the eyes of the guards, Peter choked down the dry bread (at least it got the awful taste out of his mouth) and drank the mug dry of water. "More?" Peter asked, motioning to the mug as the Dwarf took it back, but the guard ignored him. The door swung shut, leaving them in the darkness again.
"Is all Telmarine hospitality this generous?" he asked, stretching his cramped shoulders. What a relief it was, and now with his hands in front, he could slide a finger down into his boot. And yes, his last, smallest blade was still there. He wasn't entirely unarmed.
"At least there's food," said Eluned, pushing herself stiffly to her feet and going to the door. She peered through the cracks, and then put her ear to the opening. "Someone's coming," she said, and then stepped back as the door swung open again.
A tall, dark-haired man stood in the doorway: even with the sun behind him, Peter could tell he was dressed in a finer version of the Telmarine gear, with a silver-hilted sword at his belt and embroidered gloves in one hand. He stared at Peter and Eluned, and then turned to one of the guards. "The boy had it? You're sure?" At a murmured affirmative, he nodded, and then stepped back out of the shed. "Bring him out, then."
Damn, thought Peter, as the guards surged into the shed and yanked him to his feet. The dragged him into the yard and forced him to his knees in the dirt, in front of the tall Telmarine. The pain in his side stabbed at him, and he bent over, gasping. When he looked up, he saw that a few of the mercenaries had drifted over to watch the proceedings. He'd forgotten that most Humans were taller than he was, and he felt very much like a child, kneeling on the ground surrounded by armed men. He tried to hold himself straight, although it hurt to breathe.
"Well, boy," said the Telmarine, gazing at Peter with a dismissive air. "What's your name and where are you from?"
Eluned thought Peter was a peasant, and Peter was hardly dressed like a king: his breeches and jerkin were ragged and stained. So a peasant he would be, frightened and overwhelmed-not that he would be pretending very hard. He was alone, (mostly) unarmed, and far from help. And why, why in Aslan's name had they ever decided to leave Windcaller and his troop behind? He could have kicked himself for his stupidity, if the Telmarines hadn't done such a good job of it for him.
Peter let the fear well up, and stuttered, "W-Wolfsbane, my lord. From Finchley, north of here."
The Telmarine looked at one of the guards, who shook his head. "Never heard of it, Captain."
"It's very small," added Peter. "My father's a shepherd." (He imagined his father's reaction to that, and barely controlled a hysterical laugh.)
"Indeed," said the Captain. He held out a hand and one of the guards handed him a sheathed sword: a sword with a golden pommel, on a fine leather belt. At least Rhindon wasn't lost, but Peter saw the believability of his story slipping away. "A fine weapon for a peasant," said the Captain. "Who did you steal it from?"
"I never stole it!" Peter burst out, clenching his fists. "It's mine!"
The Captain drew the blade partway, tilting it so the sun reflected off the runes in the channel. "This is a finer blade than I carry, boy, and I am Asper of Rose Island. There is no honest way you could have come by such a sword." With a flick of his wrist, Asper sent the sheath flying, and Rhindon was bared, the edge of the blade mere inches from Peter's throat. "Tell me where you got it."
Peter swallowed. Surely they wouldn't kill him over this? He opened his dry mouth, uncertain what to say, and what came out was: "It was a present from Father Christmas!" Truth, for all the good it would do him.
The suspicion on Asper's face deepened, and Peter held his breath, but after several silent heartbeats, Asper laughed shortly. "You are either mad, to think I would believe you, or you have stepped out of a fairy story. Very well, Wolfsbane, I shall let you hide your thievery. These mud-grubbers know of nothing beyond their own walls: let you tell me of Narnia, its strengths and weaknesses, and perhaps I will not send you back to your sheep missing a hand, or an eye."
One of the guards sniggered. Rhindon's steel shimmered brilliantly in the afternoon sunlight: the promise of the blade seemed a bitter joke to Peter, bound and threatened by Narnia's enemies. "Why are you here?" he burst out, stalling for time. "We have no riches, this land is rough and wild! Why bring your soldiers here, where there are none to fight you?" There was a split in his breeches, just across his right knee, where he had narrowly dodged a sword-thrust that morning, and a pebble ground into his bare skin. He shifted his weight, easing his knee off the pebble and onto the bare dirt.
Asper's face darkened. "Don't think you can bluff me, boy," he snarled. "Better men than you have died for it. Even that Witch was wise enough not to try."
"Didn't tell us everything, though," grumbled one of the soldiers, and Asper nodded shortly.
"Bitch never mentioned silver mines for one," he said, casting a bright glance at the Dwarfs' hall set into the hillside. "Where there's some, there's more. And we know the Witch had an army, boy, don't play dumb. Where is it, how large is it, what are their arms?"
Peter was shocked: how had the mercenaries known the Witch, and why? But he was distracted; his gaze kept drifting over Asper's shoulder, off to the left, looking for something on the hillside. There was nothing to see: no movement, no flashes of light on mail as a troop of Narnians came charging to his rescue. Just trees, dark and thick, climbing in ranks to the ridgeline.
He yanked his attention back to Asper as Rhindon's edge touched his bare throat.
"I'm not sure!" he said, scrabbling for something that he could tell Asper, something which was believable but not too dangerous for the mercenary captain to know. "They fought, after the Witch died-I heard there was a great battle." Was it better for the Telmarine to think Narnia was strong, so he would go back to Telmar, or weak, so he could be enticed into battle and then surprised?
Rhindon retreated a notch. Peter felt a trickle of blood tickling its way down his throat. "And?" asked Asper. His face was scarred and hard, his dark eyes sharp. Peter did not think he could be frightened away.
"And I don't know-I'm just a shepherd, my lord!"
Asper's arm had to be growing weary, holding Rhindon outstretched like that, but he gave no sign of it. "Guess."
Peter wished for Edmund's skill with lying, and decided to keep the story as close to the truth as possible, so he could remember it later. "I-I heard the generals had a falling out, afterwards. And they went away, each to his own people."
His gaze returned to the hillside, and just like that, he knew. Susan. Susan was there, in the woods below the ridge. Peter knew it, as sure as he knew that Aslan wasn't going to leap out to save him this time. Susan was coming. He bit his lip to keep from smiling.
"And where-" began Asper, but he was interrupted by a soldier with a message, who waved at the closed doors of the Dwarf hall. Asper listened impatiently, then shrugged and sheathed Rhindon again. "Put him back," he ordered the guards, and walked away from Peter without a glance. Peter couldn't see where he went, because the guards followed their orders, and in less than a minute, he was back in the dark shed again.
"Well, you've the Lion's own luck," remarked Eluned with cold-blooded cheerfulness, as Peter slumped against the wall of the shed and raised his hands to touch the blood drying on his neck. "Asper didn't stop asking me questions until I was half bruises, and even then, he only believed some of what I said. What did he want?"
Peter shrugged. He hadn't handled that well, but he wasn't sure how a teenaged king was supposed to handle being interrogated by mercenaries. He had to out-think them, and at the moment he was still too uneven on his feet, and his head too fogged, to out-think even a squirrel. "What did they ask you?" he retorted.
"Nothing to any purpose," she replied sharply. "I spat in his face: I know too much about what the Witch and her bullies have done in Archenland for me to give him anything but despite. He'll get nothing from me but my name." She sounded defiant, but also frightened, which Peter had to sympathize with.
So the mercenaries had worked for the Witch, then, Peter reasoned, following the logic. Was that what the papers in her castle were about? He opened his mouth to ask Eluned what the mercenaries were doing in Archenland, and then shut it again. Best not to reveal either his ignorance or his intelligence so easily. He didn't like what she'd said about having a claim on the Narnian throne; if he said he, Peter, was the High King of Narnia, what would she do? Would she betray him to the Telmarines in order to get him out of the way?
The afternoon passed in silence, the air in the shed growing warm and stuffy from the sun, and fetid from Peter's earlier sickness. Peter dozed against the wall, wondering whether he'd made a grave error in telling Asper what little he had. What if the mercenaries decided to move further into Narnia before anyone could spread word of the danger? Had the mercenaries been the ones to burn that Faun holt, or had it been the dragon?
After sunset, the guards escorted each of the prisoners to the latrine: Peter was grateful for that, despite the guards' rough handling. He sat back down against the wall and worried, wondering what Susan was up to, where Lucy was, how Edmund was doing. Finally, he nodded off, and dreamed of battles and death, and Edmund's face white with fear.
He jerked awake. The shed was even darker than before, if that was possible, but cooler. It must be midnight, or later. Eluned was silent, probably asleep. His stomach rumbled: the Dwarfs had not brought any food since the dry bread that afternoon, and that had been little enough to start with.
There was a scratching just behind him, as if an animal were chewing at the wood of the shed wall. Peter pushed himself away from the wall, twisting around, and as he shook off sleep, he felt that touch in his mind, the sourceless knowledge that Narnia sometimes granted him. This was Susan! There, just inches away, his sister was crouched in the darkness, working on a plan to free him.
He put his head to the wall, searching for a crack between the boards, and whispered, "Susan?"
The scratching stopped. "Quiet!" came the response, a soft whisper he barely caught. "Guards in front."
He nodded, though she couldn't see him, and crouched low next to the wall, as another sound came to his ears. This wasn't the same noise, and it was less regular, marked with an occasional soft "tink". Long minutes passed, and Peter dozed off despite himself. When he awoke, he realized the sound was louder and was coming from lower down. He couldn't feel Susan's presence as clearly as before. What was she doing? "Susan?" he whispered, but the answer came from Eluned.
"You're getting out." The low voice next to his ear startled him. Eluned sounded nowhere near as cheerful as she had before. "You'll take me with you, boy, or I'll wake this whole camp. You won't make it to the trees alive."
"Fine," he hissed, forgetting for the moment that he was supposed to be a cowed peasant boy. "Now be silent. Better, stand by the door and watch for the guards."
She grunted suspiciously, but to his surprise moved away, and after a moment Peter saw a shadow pass across the firelight shining through the cracks in the door. He turned his attention back to the wall, and while he couldn't see any activity, he could feel the vibrations through his hand on the floor: someone was indeed digging. While he waited, he took his stone knife out of his boot and cut through the cords binding his wrists (although he couldn't do it without cutting himself a little, and the blood made the handle of the blade very slippery). He was in for it now: he had to escape before the guards came back and found him with his hands free.
A very few minutes later, there was a crumbling sound, a cough, and a rough and unfamiliar voice said, "King? Your sister says she's gone to start a diversion, because the sun's going to rise soon."
"Bloody hell," snapped Peter, at the same time Eluned said, in a voice sharp with suspicion, "King?"
"Never mind that," Peter said, and found that a small hand was tapping his knee.
"Take this," said the rough voice, and now Peter knew it was a Dwarf woman. Where had she come from? Weren't the Dwarfs all under guard?
He reached forward and found himself holding a small spade, more of a trowel, really. "What-" he began to ask, and then stopped, because it was obvious. "Right, then." He dug the point of the trowel into the hard-packed soil and began to dig.
The digging went on for a long time, it seemed, and Peter's hands were stiff and cramped by the time the hole was large enough for even a small child to fit through. But as Peter paused to shake out his hands, he looked around to see that light was beginning to filter in through the cracks in the doorway. Morning was coming, and with it their chances of escaping unseen were evaporating.
"Eluned!" he whispered. "Come over here and help!"
He cut her bonds and handed her the trowel, and scraped soil away with his hands as she grunted and heaved. It was clear, as they got deeper into the ground, that the Dwarf woman was working on the other end of the tiny tunnel. At length, when the light through the door was clear enough for Peter to see the dirt on his own hands, the Dwarf woman stuck her head out from under the wall, and said quietly, "It's big enough now, I think. Come through, but be silent!"
It was a narrow, twisting tunnel, with stones and loose dirt and even some roots: Peter had to grit his teeth against the pain of his ribs, pushing with his toes against the earth to move himself forward. More than once, one of Eluned's boots hit him in the face-because of course he had let her go first, even if she seemed to think she had some kind of claim on the throne of Narnia. The tunnel was not, in the end, very long, but it was long enough for Peter to be astonished at how quickly the Dwarf woman had dug it-although when he climbed out at the end, he discovered there were in fact two Dwarf women.
He wiped the soil from his eyes and found himself crouched in the thin cover of a flowering shrub, a few yards behind the shed. From here, he could see the fence where the mercenaries' horses were tied, some of the other buildings, and the fifty yards of open ground between where he crouched and the cover of the woods on the closer side of the valley. And while the eastern ridge was high enough that the sun could not yet be seen, the light in the sky was growing and people were beginning to go about their business in the yard.
They were trapped: they could not cross the open space without being seen, and soon they would be spotted where they were, or the guards would discover them gone. There was no sign of Susan, although her bow was tucked under the bush, out of casual view.
"Where is Susan?" Peter asked the older of the two Dwarf women. She had faded red hair streaked with grey, bound in braids about her head, and a wicked-looking knife thrust into her belt. The younger Dwarf answered him, silently pointing towards the horselines. Peter squinted and saw a dark-haired woman was walking briskly towards the horses-but it wasn't one of the mercenary women, it was Susan.
As he watched, she reached the horse line and disappeared behind a tall chestnut.
"King Peter," whispered the older Dwarf. "I am Rena, this is my sister Perrin. We must be ready to move as soon as the queen releases the horses." She looked worn down by labor and care, but still hard as the mountain stones, just like Pekana.
"King and queen! What is this?" hissed Eluned, whose face and hands were filthy from the tunnel. "What right-"
But Peter never did hear what right Eluned thought, or didn't think, he had, because at that moment three things happened, very unexpectedly, and one right after the other.
First, there was a shout from the yard, as a score of horses suddenly went trotting, cantering, and even galloping away, splitting apart like a set of billiard balls across the green fields. People ran after them, although one slim figure in a brown cloak angled towards the hillside, where Peter expected she would disappear. This was Susan's diversion: he began to rise to his feet, but then the second thing happened.
There was a cry and one of the mercenaries pointed: Peter followed the line of her arm to see a troop of horsemen appear at the top of the eastern ridge. They paused for a moment, back-lit by the rising sun, and then began pouring down the hillside, to cries of alarm and dismay from the Telmarines in the valley. The riders were too far away for Peter to see them clearly, but they were evidently not Telmarine, and there were a great many of them. The Telmarines began to run around, and Peter saw the glint of light on metal as weapons were seized.
The third thing was a noise from above: an enormous musical roar that reminded Peter of nothing more than a church organ. He spun around and looked up, towards the bright sunlit tip of Mount Farsight, and realized that their escape had just gotten immeasureably more complicated.
For streaking into the valley like an arrow from Susan's bow was a great gold and black serpent, with bat-like wings half-folded as it sped through the air, and an ominous smoky trail behind it. "Dragon!" shouted a Telmarine, "A dragon is upon us!"
