Chapter Eight: Trek for Two
"Oof!"
Edmund rolled over on the hard ground and blinked up at the sun's rays that struck his eyes. What just happened?
He looked over to his other side and saw Jasmine lying on the ground, eyes closed and breathing evenly. A brief glance up and above them confirmed his suspicions. The cliff seemed nearly twenty feet from where they landed and the fall must have knocked her unconscious.
He looked back over at Jasmine and couldn't help but think she looked quite delicate, even for a woman. He sat up, his muscles aching from the impact of his fall, and looked around them. Other than the expanse through which they'd fallen, there was a ceiling of earth along a lined pathway. It seemed they'd fallen right into a passage embedded into the cliff. And, with a leap of his heart, he looked further on and found that it looked like it would slope downwards, most likely leading towards the bottom of the canyon that had become of the River Rush.
However, a very faint trail of voices interrupted his flow of thought and his body tightened. He strained his ears and listened, barely able to interpret the words from such a far distance.
"Keep looking! They're around here somewhere!"
"What are your orders if we happen to find them, General?"
A pause.
"Kill them."
Edmund's hands felt clammy from a wave of panic that seemed to swallow him whole. He crept over to Jasmine's unmoving body and pulled her under the earthen ceiling to -- hopefully -- hide them both from the view of the Telmarine soldiers.
"General, you might want to take a look at this."
"What is it?"
"A cliff, General. Would you venture so far as to say they've already fallen to their deaths?"
"We can hope. I don't doubt that they've found some means of escape, though. Narnians are tricky blighters when they want to be. But I don't see how they'd manage to survive this fall. Best we keep looking."
"Aye General."
And then the voices stopped. He heard cries and shouts, all growing fainter until he could hear them no more. His body eased with relief and he let his head fall back onto the earthen wall as he breathed heavily.
A soft rustle of fabric and movement along his legs prompted him to look back down. Jasmine's body, sprawled over his lap, was beginning to stir. She opened her eyes carefully and they widened upon sighting him; she almost looked about to scream.
"Don't!" he warned, covering her mouth with his hand.
He saw the relief take form on her face when she recognized him. She reached her own hands up and covered his with them before pulling it off her mouth. "What happened?" she whispered.
"Telmarines," he hissed, "They ran after us and you fell from the cliff."
"I fell from the cliff?"
He nodded. "Although, somehow, it wasn't the very same sort of cliff we'd spotted earlier. It wasn't as long a drop as before." Which was very strange, now he came to think about it. Didn't the only thing below them appear to be the stream, the first time they'd looked?
"How peculiar..." she mumbled. And then she must have noticed that her body had been lying across his lap because her cheeks both reddened. Indeed, flaming blood rushed up to Edmund's cheeks as well when he noted just how close the two were.
Jasmine took a quick look at him and her blush deepened. She hastily sat up and climbed off of him to sit on the cavern floor. "My apologies, your Majesty," she said in a flustered whisper.
Edmund frowned. He wasn't sure what it was -- whether it be the exceptionally proper tone with which she spoke, or the slight hostility behind her eyes -- but he hated the use of his title when uttered from this woman's mouth. Why was that so? There had been a time when he had simply relished in the thought of being more important than others. And, though he was quite a different person now than he was then, he never hated to be called a royal title. The sensation was new to him and he was puzzled by it.
"Er -- where are we, your Majesty?" she asked, looking around in the dimmed passage. Barely any sun made it through as it was beginning to set on the other side of the cliff.
"I haven't a clue," he replied -- his stomach churned at the appellation, but he did his utmost to ignore it. "I daresay we'll find out soon enough." He stood, having to stoop his head as he was taller than the passage, and then offered her his arm.
She placed one hesitant hand over it and followed him.
---
The two carefully walked along the path, both keeping quiet and only speaking in whispers -- though they didn't speak often. At even the slightest noise, Edmund's body would tense up and he'd look behind them as though expecting to see a regiment of enemy soldiers. It was never completely reassuring when he didn't; it kept him guessing and he didn't like that at all.
"Ssh, stop," he whispered. Jasmine halted at once and looked at him with questioning eyes that held traces of fear, as though she were thinking he'd heard a danger. Luckily it wasn't danger that he'd heard. "A stream," he hissed. He had heard the trickling sound of flowing water and, though the darkness that had fallen on the night made it near pitch black, he was sure that meant that they had made it to the bottom of the ravine.
"I'll go first," she whispered. The small puffs of breath he'd felt on his face left him and he reached his hand out to be sure she was kept in his range.
And then, all of a sudden, he heard a break in the water's surface. The material of Jasmine's dress passed his fingertips for just a moment before he lurched out and took a hold of what felt to be her arm. He staggered as the added weight pulled at him, but did not allow himself to lose his footing. There was just a small intake of surprised breath that passed through his gritted teeth and he grasped at her hand and arm, pulling.
He knew when she'd risen from the water's capsule for the silence in the air was split with choking and gasping of breath. He groped around in the darkness until both his hands closed around hers and he pulled her back onto solid ground where he stood.
"Are you all right?" he whispered.
"Yes," came her breathless reply.
There was a tug of guilt at his heart. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, "I suppose it was deeper than I'd anticipated."
"It's fine."
But he continued to feel taken with guilt. There was something about this girl; he didn't want anything bad to happen to her. Perhaps Peter's over-protectiveness was rubbing off on him.
As he drew closer to her, he felt that she was shaking incessantly and her hands were like ice.
"Are you cold?" He didn't wait for her to respond, for the answer was obvious. He hastened to close the space between them. But she backed away.
"I'm fine."
The gesture touched his heart and left it as frozen as her hands felt. The feeling that flowed through him felt like rejection, but he had not a single idea why he would care.
"We'll have to walk along the sides," he said. "Keep close to the cliff so that you don't fall back in the water."
"Yes, your Majesty."
His insides downed at the disappointment that swept through him at these words but he only turned to begin leading her down the narrow path between the cliff wall and banks of the stream.
---
Edmund raised his head for a moment and saw a bright light through the trees. The impending darkness made it stick out like a star in the night sky. He stopped and felt Jasmine run into his back before stopping as well.
"What is it?"
"Do you see that?" he asked, turning his head though he couldn't see her in the dark, "There's a light, just there. Do you see it?"
"I see it," she replied. "Do you...think it's safe?"
He didn't want to tell her the truth. He didn't want to give her any reason to fear.
"Keep close," was all he said.
"Okay." He felt a timid hand crawl through the darkness and rest along his arm. And, despite their situation, he smiled at the touch.
Both walked along slowly, careful to make little noise. They found the beginnings of a wood and continued onward until they reached a break in the trees through which they could both see a small fire. There were silhouettes around it, but Edmund spotted no detail to tell of their identities.
"I'm going to see who they are," Edmund whispered. He turned his head to look at Jasmine, now seeing her shadowed face in the dim fire light that barely reached them. "I want you to stay here," he added.
It was a moment, a long moment, before she slowly nodded her head.
He turned back to face the fire again and crept through the trees until there was only one more to conceal him. He poked his head around the side of the trunk; the detailed features of the group were still unknown, but he could tell that there were three people seated about the campfire. A prick of fear punched its way through his barriers and rooted him to the spot.
But then a soft hand touched his and, suddenly, he felt strengthened again.
"What are you doing?" he hissed, looking up to see Jasmine, just as he thought he might, "I asked you to stay put."
"I -- I'm sorry."
Pause.
"I am sorry, your Majesty," she continued, more quietly.
"It's all right."
He tore his eyes from hers and peered back around the tree. Without a moment's worth of thought, he stole from behind his cover and out into the open. When the fire's light splayed over him, the others looked up. And he finally saw their faces.
"Oh, it's only you," he sighed in relief.
"Nice to see you too, Ed," Peter scoffed.
"Oh Edmund!" Lucy jumped from her spot on the forest floor and bounded over to take him in embrace. "We hoped you would come find us!"
"We tried to wait for you," Susan said with a remorseful grimace as she took Edmund in her arms as well, "but then we heard the soldiers and..."
"Peter wouldn't let us stop," Lucy finished quietly, as though it were a very shameful act, "He told us that you could handle yourself and keep Jasmine safe as well." At this point, she had seemed to remember their tag-along and stood on the tips of her toes to glimpse over his shoulder. "Where is she?" she asked, resting back down on the balls of her feet.
"I'm here," came a small voice. He looked over his shoulder and found that Jasmine walked from her spot behind the tree timidly, towards them.
"Oh dear!" Lucy cried. She flung her arms around Jasmine as well, but recoiled when Jasmine's cold and wet skin touched her. "You're so cold! What's happened to you?"
"We fell from the cliff," Edmund said, "And Jasmine then fell into a stream. A rather deep stream, that I hadn't seen coming."
"Oh no..." Susan said, taking in Jasmine's dreary appearance with a grim frown. "Let's get you into something dry. Lucy, can you hand me my bag? Yes, thanks. Good thing we thought to bring along extra clothing from the Cair's ruins..." Susan's voice grew somewhat distant as she and Lucy escorted Jasmine to an area of the wood private from the campsite.
Edmund sank down next to Peter. "How have you all fared?"
"Better than you two," he replied, giving Ed a pointed look, "None of us nearly drowned."
Edmund furrowed his brows as the jibe stabbed an insult into him. "I pulled her out."
"Better late than never..."
Edmund felt his hand shaking and anger coursed through his veins, threatening to pour out upon Peter if he did not find any means of control soon. "I found something interesting," he said, eager to change the subject. "When we fell down the cliff, it seemed a new level of ground had just...appeared since we had seen it earlier today. Have you any thoughts on that?"
"Actually, yes," Peter replied. "We found that route when Lucy was showing us the place she had seen Aslan before. She fell through it."
"I suppose she wasn't seeing things then," Edmund murmured.
"It's a bit odd for Aslan to appear now rather than earlier when the Narnians needed him most, though," Peter replied, "Don't you think?"
"Maybe." In truth, Edmund found that he couldn't think lowly of the Lion at all. He had the utmost respect and faith for Aslan. He had taken the nasty little boy that Edmund had been upon his first entering into Narnia and turned him into a young man of chivalry, whom he could be proud to be. Aslan had done too much for Edmund to think any kind of negative about him.
"I've found some more wood," a gruff voice announced. Edmund looked up and saw Trumpkin approaching the campsite through a path between the trees. He dropped the fire wood from his arms and settled onto a spot on the ground before he even looked over in Edmund's direction. "Oh, so you've found us? I suppose it was that girl that set off the Telmarines in the first place..." He scoffed in obvious dislike, "Too much to hope that you've lost her, isn't it?"
A sudden surge of anger tore through Edmund, numbing any sensible bone in his body.
"Yes. She's here with us and she's not going anywhere else," he replied through gritted teeth.
Trumpkin frowned at him. "What's got your knickers in a knot?"
However, before Edmund could reply, the sound of giggles and footsteps reached the men to suggest the return of the three girls.
"Thank you so much, your Majesty." Edmund's ears perked at this particular voice and he looked up when Jasmine entered the site with Susan and Lucy.
"Oh it was nothing," Susan replied, "I expected you were around my size, and we couldn't let you stay in those wet clothes. You would've caught a nasty cold!"
They all settled on a patch of forest floor by the fire. Edmund's eyes gazed towards Jasmines, and he felt almost hopeful. For what, he couldn't be sure. He spotted her look up and lock eyes with him for just the briefest of moments.
But then she was looking back down to the ground and shifting closer to Lucy, and farther from him.
He wasn't sure what bothered him most: the somewhat frightened look she wore when she saw him, or the fact that any of this bothered him at all.
And it was with a twinge of both pleasure and fret that he thought he might have discovered exactly what 'had his knickers in a knot.'
