WARNING: Er, yeah…you might want to consider grabbing a stress ball to squeeze. This chapter gets sort of intense…
Disclaimer: I own nothing in this marvelous universe; it all belongs to C. S. Lewis and Walden Media.
Author's Note: ::rolls eyes:: You know, when an author says they plan to revise a story, they usually do it after the story has finished. ::sighs:: Ah, well. This chapter just underwent some extensive revisions—I just couldn't leave it alone! So I'm hoping this isn't too irritating for my readers as I like it so much better than the original ones. Chapter Fourteen and Fifteen have just been combined, so please enjoy this (relatively new) chapter!
Reviewers:Thank you all so much for your reviews, I appreciate every single one of them!
Rating: T/M (for intensity)
Summary: What if Lucy had decided to go across the gorge when she saw Aslan, regardless of whether her siblings came with her? At least she won't be alone…and it is not just Aslan who joins her…(AU, Book and Moviebased)
"Speech"
/Personal Thoughts/
Memories/Book Excerpts/Quotes (Italics)
(14) Prince Caspian p. 404 in The Completed Chronicles of Narnia (Paperback)
Keeping the Faith
By Sentimental Star
Chapter Fourteen: The Trying of Faith (Part 2)
"You've seen more battles than I," said Caspian. "Is there any chance now?"
"Precious little," said Edmund. "I suppose he might just do it. With luck."
"Oh, why did we let it happen at all?" said Caspian. (14)
Almost as soon as they burst out of the How, Lucy sensed that something had gone terribly, horribly, utterly and completely wrong.
The steed whinnied and shied, fighting the reins as she abruptly jerked them to a halt.
Susan's arms around her waist tightened. "Lucy?" she hissed anxiously.
"I can't, Susan!" came the fierce cry from the younger girl in front of her. "They're completely outnumbered, in over their heads, and I won't--!"
Her sister blinked, clearly startled. "Won't? Won't what, Lucy?"
"Leave them!" she gestured wildly behind them at Aslan's How where, even as they spoke, the horns called Narnia's High King to single combat. "You know how Edmund gets—what he'll do! And Peter--!"
"Lucy, listen to me," Susan spoke up quickly, trying to keep her voice calm and level and ignore the sense of urgency that flushed through her veins. "We can't go back. Peter's trying to buy us time. If we don't go search for Aslan, what do you think will happen—to him? To them? We need Aslan—and you have the surest chance of finding Him."
"But--!"
At that moment, there was a sudden, sharp thwack as a crossbow arrow embedded itself in the trunk of a nearby oak tree.
Their horse neighed and reared, brave and noble beast though he was, forcing the two girls to cling to the saddle and each other. "NO!" Lucy shrieked as the steed shot forward, his hooves thundering over and through the bracken.
Several sets of additional hooves clattered and thudded across the turf behind them. "They've seen us!" she cried. "We've got to circle around and come up behind!"
"No!" Susan's exclamation was forceful, nearly lost though it was in the clatter of hooves. "Keep going straight, Lucy—we haven't a choice!"
"But, Susan--!"
"Caspian will be there with Edmund and Peter, Lucy! We can't do anything else—you know the rules of single combat!"
"That doesn't make me feel any better, Susan!"
"Just keep going!" Susan cried over the thunder of the steed's hooves. A second and a third crossbow bolt whizzed over the two queens' heads. "Duck!" her older sister shouted, shoving Lucy's head down and ducking herself. The arrows sailed a hair's breadth over their heads to embed themselves in the trees around them with two resounding thwacks.
Lucy gave a strangled yell. Branches lashed at her face as they sped through the wood.
"Lucy!" the shout penetrated the panicked haze of her mind. So did a sharp crack as one of the arrows shattered the branch of a tree overhead. "Lucy, stop! Stop, Lu!" Then a sudden jerk as Susan grabbed the reins from behind her and dragged them to a halt. Lucy felt her older sister swing off the saddle and onto the ground behind her.
"Wha-what? Susan, what are you doing?!" a panicked cry as she twisted around, trying to see where her sister was going.
The look in Susan's dark eyes as her sister squarely met hers caused Lucy's very blood to freeze.
"I'm sorry, Lucy," the older girl's voice trembled just the slightest bit as she released the reins, "but it looks like you have to make the rest of the journey on your own—yah!" and she soundly slapped the horse's rear flank.
With a neigh and a whinny, the steed reared again and galloped into the forest, Lucy's despairing, agonized cry echoing behind them.
IOIOIOIOIOI
In the silence that followed the last clattering echo of the horse's hooves, Caspian slipped back to join the two legendary kings. A hushed whisper came from Peter beside him: "Aslan keep them safe."
The prince glanced at the High King out of the corner of his eye and turned to face him, hesitantly reaching out for the older king's shoulder. "I am sure He will," he responded softly, giving the shoulder beneath his hand a hard squeeze.
"He'll find them, Pete," Edmund added quietly, still gazing straight ahead down the tunnel. A faint grin flitted across the younger king's countenance as he finally turned to look at his brother. "And if He isn't able to, I'm sure Lucy will find Him, even if she has to move heaven and earth to do it."
Casting a grateful smile at Caspian (who bowed his head in acknowledgement), Peter turned and lightly punched his younger brother's arm. "Su will, too, Ed. And probably just as easily. There were a couple of times on our way here when she insisted she saw—and was following—Aslan."
Wonder spread across Caspian's features. "You have seen Him?"
Peter shifted to quirk a small grin at the prince. "Susan did first. Numerous times. I only saw Him once—at the entrance to the How when we came rushing in here. It was enough."
When Edmund released a faint breath, Caspian glanced at him. Silently he noted that, already, the younger king's shoulders seemed less tense after that one statement than they had in the last two days combined.
Peter noticed, too—and smiled, eyes and voice warm: "I'm all right now, Ed," he murmured, lightly smoothing back his brother's hair and earning a reluctant smile in response. "I promise."
But when horns split the air outside a moment later, the prince wordlessly observed that the younger king's grip had tightened on the sword belt slung over his shoulder.
Shaking his head sadly, Caspian turned to meet the older boy's gaze. "That is the call to combat, King Peter," he informed him quietly. At the sudden shudder of the ground and the small cascade of soil and miniature boulders down on their heads, Narnia's newest king pressed his lips together in a thin line. "And it seems they have brought the cavalry with them."
IOIOIOIOIOI
As they raced through the trees, Lucy tried hard to ignore the wavering haze of her vision, keeping her eyes locked on the forest path ahead of them. With a dull sort of surprise, she realized she'd never asked Caspian the horse's name. It was such an inconsequential thing to worry about, but so much better than the alternative.
Anything, to keep from thinking about her siblings' fates.
Her own fate, however, could not long be ignored.
She screamed as another crossbow bolt (conspicuously absent until now) whizzed uncomfortably close to her left ear, embedding itself in a tree just ahead and to the right of her. There were shouts behind her. Horses' hooves.
Whizz. Thwack. Whizz. Thwack.
She ducked twice and bit back another cry, trying to stifle and smother the fear knotting her stomach. Leaning until she was almost parallel to the steed's neck, gripping the reins until her knuckles were white, she urged, "Faster, Master Horse! Faster!" and would have felt rather silly about it were she not so close to outright panicking. Gone was the Valiant Queen who had defied her oldest brother and High King to follow Aslan. Without any of her siblings or Caspian at her back, she was now merely the terrified nine-year-old who had consistently been fighting her twenty-four-year-old self for the past half-year (she didn't count the time spent at the Professor's).
A whisper, nearly a rumbling purr, brushed against her right cheek:
"Peace be to you, Dear One. Fear not."
Lucy jerked her head up…and narrowly avoided striking her forehead on a low hanging branch. When another arrow flew a shade too close to her face and nicked her left cheek, she choked back a yell at the white-hot flash of pain and bent forward again, dark hair whipping around her.
"Dear One, trust in me. I will never forsake you."
This time, Lucy listened.
IOIOIOIOIOI
The moment they emerged from the How, Edmund was aware of Miraz's eyes on him. They were predatory, almost anticipatory. The usurper clearly had not forgotten the promise he had made—if it could be called that—to Edmund in the pavilion. Unfortunately, from long experience, Edmund knew that it wouldn't take long for Peter to pick up on it.
It was almost scary, really, how well Peter could sense danger when it came to any of his siblings.
It was certainly scary when he reacted. Too many times holding his brother's broken body, too many memories of his brother's warm, alarmingly rapid flow of blood coating his hands and coloring his nightmares, had had Edmund on edge hours before the combat had even taken place.
And the smirk that touched Miraz's lips now, as the usurper took in the picture the two brother-kings presented, was anything but reassuring. Indeed, it was positively gleeful.
Still smirking, Miraz, where he sat on a stool, leaned over and whispered something to one of the soldiers helping him into his last pieces of armor. The soldier looked utterly startled for a moment, unease and uncertainty flickering across his face, before nodding, and slowly climbing to his feet.
As Edmund watched, the soldier took a crossbow from Glozelle—who was standing off to the side—with a half-apologetic shrug. Even as he relinquished his grip on the weapon, the General pressed his lips into a thin, displeased line.
When he raised his head to gaze across the lists at Edmund, his eyes and mouth were grim.
Edmund shivered. /Somehow, I don't think he's trying to hold a staring contest,/ and gave a barely perceptible nod, dipping his head in acknowledgement of the only warning the man had been able to give.
Glozelle shut his eyes and turned away.
IOIOIOIOIOI
The horse gave a frantic neigh and reared as she yanked back abruptly on the reins, unseating her. Her cry as she hit the ground and rolled caught halfway in her throat as all air was forced out of her lungs.
She didn't even have enough air to scream as one of the Telmarines who had been pacing her reined in his own horse and raised his sword in preparation to strike her.
Without so much as a yell, the man toppled from his horse and into the undergrowth, a crossbow bolt protruding from his side.
"Lucy!"
She barely had time to register the shout and the utter familiarity of the voice before yet another Telmarine was upon her. But the soldier never touched her.
With a resounding, echoing clang of metal meeting metal, a second steed—indeed, the other half of the pair they had brought with them to the How on the day they met Caspian—and his rider abruptly appeared between Lucy and the Telmarine soldier.
The man had no chance to react. Within seconds Caspian—for Caspian it was—knocked him clear off the other horse's back. A heartbeat and pounding of hooves later, the soldier's steed was gone.
Paying little attention to the remaining Telmarine, the prince tugged his mount around, dark eyes wild and searching frantically for Lucy. When he spotted her, he dropped the reins and literally tumbled off the horse's back, scrambling to reach her.
As soon as he had, Caspian jerked her to her feet and crushed her in a hug so hard that she squeaked. "I knew I should have gone with you!" he whispered fiercely into her hair.
Lucy blinked. Before she could so much as eke out a reply, there was a sudden roar, glorious and fierce, from behind them.
Both she and Caspian whipped around in enough time to find themselves face to face with a Telmarine crossbow bolt, its owner's finger mere inches from the trigger. Another, all-resounding roar and the soldier's face went white as he stared in horror at something over their shoulders. A rush of warm, delicious air over their heads, and before the man could so much as flee, a great, golden blur landed in front of them and lunged, catching the man's neck in his jaws.
Lucy gave a cry and darted forward, "Oh, Aslan, don't! Please don't! Hasn't it gone far enough already?"
The Lion (for it could only be the Lion) dropped the man into the bracken and held him firmly in place with one heavy paw, a fierce snarl on his lips. Then he turned…and smiled at her, his entire face softening.
As Caspian's hand touched Lucy's shoulder and lightly tugged on it, Aslan raised his great shaggy head and gazed at the boy-king behind her, "What do you wish to be done with him, King Caspian?"
Lucy began weeping and Caspian gently pulled her back into his arms. As he gazed at the soldier, the prince felt his lips tighten and his eyes go hard. He wanted nothing more than to kill this man who would have shot his friend with little remorse, but he remembered Edmund and remembered Glozelle and was all too aware of Lucy's tears soaking his jerkin. "Let him go," he snarled at last, turning away and wrapping both his arms tightly around Lucy's quivering shoulders.
Aslan did.
When the man did nothing but stare, the Lion roared. In his haste to get away, the man stumbled over backwards before he finally ran.
With a wide smile, Aslan shook out his mane and turned back to Caspian. "Yes," he rumbled, "yes, I am well-pleased, indeed."
"Told you so," Lucy retorted thickly. Caspian's cheeks went red.
Around a sob, Lucy choked out a laugh.
IOIOIOIOIOI
The last few minutes before the combat were a blur, really. Vaguely, Edmund was aware that Caspian ought to be at his shoulder—the prince had expressed his misgivings often enough about leaving either one of the other kings unaccompanied. As it was, the young Telmarine's slightly worrisome absence barely registered.
Nothing registered, really, except the brief brush of Peter's lips against his skin and Peter's hand as it grasped Rhindon's hilt.
Edmund did not have to look at Miraz to know the man had caught that exchange. As Peter drew his sword and cheers erupted from the Narnians behind him, the usurper's smirk grew.
When he stood, the Telmarine turned to the lords clustered around him, accepting his helmet from one and his sword from another. He paused to say something to the first (Edmund was nearly certain it was the one called Sopespian) and then he was in the center of the combat field, arms held out to the side and waiting. For Peter.
"If their Majesties are quite done…" Miraz's remark was less a drawl and more a provocation.
Edmund ignored him, turning to his brother. "Remember what I said," he ordered softly, turning his brother around to make some last minute adjustments to his armor. "No matter what happens, no matter what he tries--"
"—Keep fighting," Peter interrupted tightly, shifting his grip on his sword's pommel and his feet into his ready stance. "I know, Ed. God, I know…but I wish to heaven you were far away from here."
Edmund chose not to answer that half-plea. Instead, tightening one last fastener, he pressed a swift kiss to Peter's cheek, murmuring against the skin there, "Aslan be your wings and guide your steps, brother."
Then Peter was gone, out of his reach and far from the body that could (and often did) serve as the High King's shield.
IOIOIOIOIOI
When Peter finally joined Miraz in the circle of the ruins, there were no niceties exchanged. Miraz had only one thing on his mind, and he would do anything to get it. His greeting to Peter, therefore, was perhaps to be expected, "There is still time to surrender."
As the two began to circle each other, swords out and already testing each other's defenses, Peter set his jaw. "Well, feel free," he ground out.
Edmund did not like the smile that curled the usurper's lips in response. "You misunderstand me," the older man purred, gesturing sharply to the soldier handling the crossbow. The bolt was brought around and held level with Edmund's chest, the Telmarine's finger hovering just above the trigger.
A sneer replaced the smile on Miraz's face. "It is not your life I seek to gain."
When Peter's eyes widened and his face went white, Edmund felt his stomach plummet. /Bleeding Hell…!/ he swore furiously. He'd anticipated this would happen, indeed, even expected it, but to play this carelessly with Peter…
"Your Highness will not let this distract you!" the younger of Narnia's two legendary kings fairly barked out. The tone was so reminiscent of Oreius that Peter immediately snapped to attention.
Somewhere in the midst of his blind horror, Edmund was darkly amused to note that several Telmarines across from him had done the same. As for the Narnians…he merely started profusely thanking Aslan that the only ones within hearing range were Glenstorm and the oldest of the Bulgy Bears—and that was bad enough.
It took only seconds for the Centaur General to assess the situation.
When the Centaur began to rear, Edmund snapped his hand up. "Your orders are to stay as you are and where you are, General," he commanded sharply, making a mental note to apologize deeply and repeatedly to the good-hearted Centaur later (because by now he was determined there would be a later). "King Caspian and the High King are your first priorities."
If ever a Centaur could look mutinous, this one did. Edmund loved him all the more for it.
"I would respectfully beg to differ, my Liege," he murmured, "and I suspect your royal brother would say the same." But he eased himself back onto his forelegs.
Edmund smiled tightly, "Thank you, General." /Mental note: do not go near a practice field with Glenstorm—or Peter—for a very long time./
"If we could continue this, your Highness," the sneer in Miraz's voice was unmistakable as Edmund jerked his attention back to the combat field.
The eleven-year-old gritted his teeth. "By all means, go ahead," he ground out, voice barely civil and pure ice.
Miraz swept into a mock-bow—it could only be a mock-bow—before turning back to Peter…who looked, at this point, nothing short of murderous. Murderous…and desperate.
Edmund cursed under his breath. Shifted. And cursed again. The crossbow remained leveled at the youngest king's heart.
/You had better make damn sure you win this combat, Peter Pevensie,/ Edmund thought furiously, wordlessly snarling at the smirk on Miraz's lips and not noticing as Glozelle discreetly shifted into place beside his soldier, /because if something happens to me…Aslan help me, I know it will destroy you./
In your patience possess ye your souls.—Luke 21:19
Tbc.