AN: The next chapter will probably be the last one for this fanfic.
As could have easily been predicted, simply getting Lucy off of the scaffold was not the end of the matter. The guards didn't stay toppled over in a miserable, angry heap behind the wreckage of the dragon-bombed scaffold for ever-or even for as long as Edmund would have preferred, really, if given a choice.
The count barely had enough time to run into a crowded market road (hoping it would be harder for the guards to keep track of them with the distraction of several other persons about) then duck into a small alleyway where he worked at trying to remove his wife's bonds, knowing that, much as he would prefer she not, all the more so after what she'd just been through, she might have to fight if the guards managed to corner them in spite of their best efforts. The ropes on her feet were easy enough (he simply cut them off with a pocketknife he had on his person), but the shackles, as Edmund had no key for unlocking them, were so impossible that, after struggling to pick the blasted thing open for nearly four minutes, he became frustrated and cursed rather colourfully under his breath.
Lucy pretended not to hear what he was muttering. She focused instead on the sound of his voice in itself for it's own merits; understandably, she was very glad to be hearing it again, no matter what it was saying.
Thankfully, Dragon-Eustace had stationed himself in the way of the guards in order to delay them somewhat; but he couldn't keep at it for long because of the massive weapons they took to flinging at him. Some kinds just grazed off of him and so were no problem, yet there were others which could have potentially ripped through his skin-hardened and plated by his strong scales as it was.
"Bother these chains!" Edmund snapped as his pocketknife broke in the keyhole of Lucy's shackles. "We're going to run out of time!"
"Leave me here," Lucy suggested hurriedly. "Go help the others. I'll figure some way out of them."
"The others?"
"Caspian, Lilliandil, Ivy, Mr. Ketterley, the hea-I mean, Coriakin, and Lord Rhoop."
"Lord who?" He furrowed his brows in confusion.
"He's a friend," she explained quickly; "he's with Caspian and the rest. We can't just leave him."
"Of course not," Edmund agreed, though he was nervous about rescuing someone he didn't even know from the apprehension house; it wasn't that he didn't want to save the poor chap, it was simply that so many people were turning out to be on the wrong side these days and it was beginning to make his head spin. "But I can't fathom why you want to save Andrew, really."
"He's just stupid, Edmund, that's all." Lucy shrugged. Andrew was crude, self-centered, and involved in witchcraft, but thinking of him as a dangerous enough person to be executed was a bit heavy-handed for his kind of magician. In comparison to the witch Edmund had killed so very long ago, Andrew Ketterley was just a pitiful bag-of-bones of a cow in the shadow of a great snorting bull with huge horns.
Edmund rolled his eyes.
Lucy had decided not to tell her husband that Andrew Ketterley had testified against her until after he saved him, just in case, but it sort of slipped out in spite of her best efforts.
"Actually," said Edmund, when he had recovered from what Lucy had accidentally just told him, "I'm not going to get 'the others'."
"What? Why not?" Oh, how could he?
"Jill Pole and Marjorie Preston are," he whispered.
"Oh." Lucy felt a sudden rush of shame for doubting him even for that one second. Her beloved count had never given her reason to doubt him before, it was highly unlikely that he would start now of all times. "But, I say, what is Marjorie doing on our side? Marjorie hates me."
"Not anymore. It's a long story. The short version is that she's finally gotten it through her thick head that I never liked her." Edmund glanced over his shoulder, thinking he heard a noise. "What was that?"
It turned out to be only a stray, non-talking cat knocking a dustbin over, nothing worrisome.
"Leave me and go help Eustace, then, he might be hurt if they keep shooting at him," Lucy re-voiced her suggestion.
"I'm not going to leave you tied up like this," he huffed.
"But you should go-"
"And what? Have you found and dragged back to the scaffold and killed? I think not."
Lucy sighed, finding in herself the strangest urge almost to giggle, which she stifled at once. "Ed, there isn't any scaffold there any longer; it's all practically matchwood now."
"Lu, if someone really wants to kill you, no lack of scaffold is going to stand in their way, all right? But I am." He focused back in on her shackles.
"While we're working at this, do you mind if I ask you something?" Lucy wanted to know.
"Anything, fire away," he said, a bit absently.
"How exactly are Marjorie and Jill going to break the others out?"
Edmund bit back a smirk. "Don't worry, they've got a plan."
"What sort of plan?"
At that very moment, Marjorie, looking nervous and fidgety (only half-acting, to tell the truth), was approaching the apprehension house. She looked over her shoulder, at Jill, who stood behind her and nodded reassuringly. It was true that a great deal of the guards had gone to the scaffold with Lucy, but no one would have been mad enough to let them all go, leaving the other prisoners unguarded. And that meant they probably had quite a few to go up against.
Jill had only the one bow and quiver of arrows she had no means of replacing once they were all used up along with some raw target-hitting talent (Marjorie had nothing but a bread-knife she'd somehow pinched along the way, only that didn't matter very much as she was quite useless at hand-to-hand fighting and shooting anyway) to use against all the guards' speed, skill, and weapons if it came to an out-right battle; so she knew she must, as much as possible, use trickery and guile as Edmund had suggested. She only wished their plan was a little more foolproof. It wasn't that it was a particularly bad one, it truly was the best they could have come up with on such short notice, but it wasn't exactly the stuff real war-strategy is made up of, either.
Marjorie stationed herself right at the front gates of the apprehension house while Jill gave her a stern, 'try not to funk this' look and went sideways into a small space between two very poorly cared for bushes.
Thinking of how little chance there was of success and how it was all her fault made Marjorie's chin tremble, and Jill was glad of it since their plan counted largely on her going into hysterics enough to distract the guards.
Tears began to slide down her face and Marjorie began to weep openly and much louder even than she usually did without making it sound too put-on. She waited for the guards to hear and take some notice of her, and when they didn't seem to straight off, she almost gave Jill's hiding position away by sliding her pupils to look over at her.
"It's not working," she mouthed.
"Cry harder," huffed Jill, pouting and looking about her feet for a useful pebble. Finally finding one, she hurled it at the building, hoping it made some noteworthy noise. Oh, if only the place had more windows! She thought crankily. It's a prison, sure, but it doesn't have to be completely void of light or glass.
At last two guards came out and Marjorie was positively bawling.
"What is it, young lady?" one of them demanded, rather gruffly. "Move on, no reason for you to be here."
Marjorie let out a gasp for air and another shriek, taking no heed of them, going right on with her crying.
"Perhaps she's hurt," the slightly kinder of the two guards whispered to the other. "Or else has been frightened out of her wits by something."
"Well, Miss," demanded the other, thinking his compatriot might be onto something, "are you hurt, then?"
"Oh, oh, oh!" she wailed, muttering off something that they couldn't quite make out in-between fresh sobs that shook her whole back.
Yet another guard came out. "What's the problem out here?"
"Don't know, this girl won't stop crying."
"Eh? What's that? Who is she, anyway?"
"We don't know."
"Well, don't stand there stupidly, we've got to get the brat to move on, can't have her hanging round here making all those fitful sounds, now can we? Open the gate and try to see if she'll take some help."
And so they did. "Is someone hurt? Did you need something? Stop that blubbing at once and tell us or we'll hit you with the flat of a sword blade. We're very busy, you know."
"Yes, yes," wailed Marjorie, her hands on her face now. "I can see that." She parted her fingers and peeked through at them.
"Well, what do you want?"
"Um, help, of course," she stammered, sniffling. "It's dreadful."
"What is?"
But she seemed to have no intention of telling them what her complaint was, for she was crying hard in earnest once again and they could no longer understand her.
"Oh, this is ridiculous!" grunted a guard. "We can't understand her, and if she won't be shooed off…I suppose we'll have to send someone with her to see what the problem is for ourselves."
"But there's only five of us left on duty right now to guard the prisoners. And if we go, that leaves only two."
"It's a slow enough day, and my head aches, let's just go with the blasted girl and get her to stop making that awful sound. I've heard cats lovemaking on the apprehension house roof before and even that was a more pleasant sound than the fit this girl's taken on." The guard rubbed his temples while he spoke.
So I'm only up against two, thought Jill, that's not so bad-or, at least, it could be far worse. She gripped her bow tightly and made sure the quiver of arrows was strapped firmly to her back before creeping out and sliding soundlessly through the open gates while the guards were talking and didn't see or hear her go passed them.
She tried to stick to shadowy corners, not wanting the two other guards to catch sight of her if they didn't have to, and hoped Marjorie remembered that after she had led the three guards off far enough she was supposed to lose herself in a crowd as Edmund himself planned to do once he got Lucy off of the scaffold. If the foolish girl forgot, she'd be stuck with three short-tempered guards in tow for goodness knew how long and eventually they would realize she was taking them on a wild goose chase. And despite Marjorie's resent actions, Jill didn't want to see her hurt; besides, they didn't have so many on their side as they would have liked, this was no time to be choosy about personal misgivings and grudges. They didn't even know where Professor Kirke was (he seemed to have vanished shortly after Coriakin was taken, though he himself had not been apprehended).
Finding another pebble, Jill threw it over her shoulder, towards the gate, where it made a clink. The two guards didn't go outside to look, but they did crane their necks briefly in that direction, the door now ajar, quickly losing interest. But not so quickly that Jill hadn't been able to creep in.
Suddenly it occurred to her that she ought to, while she was here, if there was time, look for the key to Lucy's shackles; for somehow she doubted Edmund, all his talents put aside for the moment, just to be realistic, would be able to get them off without it. She decided she would ask Caspian where the guards kept he keys when she found him.
When she finally found where he, Lilliandil, Ivy, and Coriakin (and presumably Andrew Ketterley as well) were being kept, she was surprised that the door was unlocked. Likely, the guards figured that as long as all the side-exits were locked and bolted the prisoners, even if they left their chamber without permission, wouldn't be able to get out without their knowing of it. All the more so, it was probably pride; they figured that, after what they'd done to Caspian, the pale, frightened prisoners who's little friend was being burned as a witch that evening weren't going to take any chances.
Sticking her head in the door, Jill heard a voice whisper-cry in extreme surprise, "Why, it's Pole!" –it was Coriakin.
Caspian, who had been lying on his side in bed, sat up and noticed her. "However did you get in here?" he hissed from his place.
Andrew almost yelled out to her in what would have been quite a loud tone of voice, but Ivy put her hand over his mouth. Lord's Rhoop's eyes were wide; he thought he was dreaming and that the girl standing before them with the brave face and the bow and arrows was only a slumbering vision; but it was-and this is what stunned him-a very peculiar vision, for he couldn't imagine why he would be dreaming about a strange young lady entering in place of the guards.
"Quickly," said Jill, putting her finger to her lips. "We've got to get out, and at once. Three of your guards have been distracted, surely we're a match for only the two; but if we can sneak out without a fight, even better."
Caspian rose up and Jill sucked in her breath, shocked by the way he stood, as if he was having some trouble with his back. That wasn't good, she hadn't anticipated any of them being wounded-weak, perhaps, but not wounded. Poor Caspian! And Lilliandil, though her back was perfectly fine, turned out to be in all around bad shape far worse than his! Jill felt thankful that Ivy was a natural fighter. If only they could manage to keep Andrew Ketterley and that strange, unknown person the others seemed to intend to bring out with them, quiet, all might end well.
"Oh, I almost forgot," whispered Jill to Caspian, who was the last to lumber out of the open doorway, "do you know where they keep the keys to the shackle chains here?"
"What does it matter? None of us is chained."
"But Lucy is," she pointed out.
"Lucy!" Caspian's eyes lit up. Did he dare to believe there was hope for her after all? "Is she all right?"
"I believe Edmund's got her by now; Eustace is helping him. But I don't know how he's going to get those beastly chains off of her without a key."
"Don't worry about it," Caspian told her, feeling immensely relieved that Lucy was relatively safe now; "Coriakin can get just about anything open. And if it's so bad that even he can't help, we can hire a locksmith later and keep Lucy hidden until then. We do not have time to look for keys right now, we might get lost or worse."
"All right," Jill agreed, a little dejected but understanding his point regardless.
They traveled as soundlessly as possible through the corridors except for a faint humming kind of sound they couldn't pin-point until Ivy figured it out and shook her fist at Andrew threatening to 'send him into another world with her knuckles' if he didn't stop humming. Coriakin suggested gagging him again, though they didn't actually have any spare cloth on them to do it with, but Mr. Ketterley grudgingly agreed to be quiet.
"Honestly!" said Jill under her breath through everyone still heard. "You would think he wanted to be caught, way he's acting!"
One of the guards had fallen asleep, the other was awake and playing dominos with himself (and cheating) on a small wooden table near the way Jill had come in and hoped to smuggle the others out.
"If we can keep him from waking his companion," whispered Coriakin, "it will be all the better for us. Arrow on the bowstring, Jill Pole. We might be able to frighten him into keeping quiet till we've gotten through."
"Who's there?" The guard put down his domino piece, for he could have sworn he heard something.
"Don't move!" Jill leapt out before him, holding an arrow to the bowstring and looking extremely serious. "And don't wake your friend there. If you do, I'll shoot."
The Guard's trained hand automatically went for a throwing-dagger he had near-by, but Jill, hiding the fact that she was rather nervous marvelously, didn't hesitate, and with a heart-stopping twang her arrow flew and landed right next to his wrist, deeply embedded in the table.
"That was a warning." She quickly fitted another arrow to her bowstring. "The next one probably won't be."
"You're bluffing," he stated darkly.
"You had better hope I am," Jill retorted, scowling sternly, "but, if I were you, I wouldn't want to risk it."
The guard, only a very little bit shaky, began to rise; Jill released her arrow and it pinned his wrist to the wall behind him.
As for the sleeping guard, he stirred restlessly for a moment and let out a low moan, and the guard with his wrist stuck to the wall certainly hoped he would wake and even tried to make a tapping sound with his foot before Jill shot at his ankle; but he never did fully waken. Andrew suggested shooting the sleeping guard through the temples, but the others called him a horrid tyrant and coward and Jill especially, since she was the one doing all the shooting anyway, was very much against this plan.
Then they all went out of the apprehension house, scarcely daring to believe they were getting away. Lord Rhoop stated over and over again that it surely was a dream. But when they came to the scaffold, and there was quite an extraordinary battle going on there, any sense of dreamlike wandering was stifled, even as the former prisoners' eyes adjusted to the bright but rapidly fading (for it was sunset) light.
There was Edmund, his hood flung back, and the guard who had denied Lucy her glass of water going at it sword to sword. The guard was skilled, but so was Edmund, and in comparison to the glory of Rhindon, the guard's hideous sword was as feeble as a toy, which, needless to point out, really would have tipped the chances of winning greatly in the count's favor if only he was not still suffering from his stomach wound and the guard did not have the others helping him. At least Edmund had Dragon-Eustace, who was being a brick, and brilliant as well, in his movements, still not shot down by the guards, which was something of a miracle in itself.
Somehow Rhince and Glozelle had managed to get there and were also helping Edmund, but none of the other members of the Rhindon Investigation Society had been able to make it; many of them were under the careful watch of Anne and her uncle, and that was little better than being under house-arrest at times.
Jill wondered where Lucy was, before remembering that her shackles would have made it hard for her to fight. Of course Lucy would have wanted to fight; she wasn't like Marjorie who was undoubtedly hiding and crying somewhere (Jill decided not to grudge her this since she had done her part, distracting the guards, though it still irked her a bit); but her absence couldn't be helped. So the countess was hidden between two large dustbins in that alleyway Edmund had pulled her into, a blanket over her head, pretending to be a bum.
If it could have been done, Edmund would have just run with her and never-minded about fighting, but the guards had tracked him no sooner than he'd gotten Lucy hid (and there had been Dragon-Eustace to think about, anyway). They knew he had taken her, and demanded he return the witch to be delivered up to justice, and of course he would say nothing. And Lucy had had to bite her lip to keep from crying out and to hold her wrist very, very still to keep the chains from jingling and giving her away.
Edmund went on fighting and Jill joined in, shooting what was left of the precious arrows. When Andrew Ketterley unwittingly came near (he was trying to hide but was lousy at it), Edmund did something that surprised the guards; he left off fighting and put Rhindon, instead, to Andrew's neck.
"Tell them!" he shouted at the magician. "Tell them the truth."
"What t-truth?"
"About Lucy," Edmund snapped, his eyes darkening with anger. "Tell them the truth; tell them she wasn't your apprentice! Tell them!"
"She w-wasn't…" whimpered Andrew Ketterley. "I offered, but she refused."
"Louder," demanded Edmund, pushing the sword in a little deeper; Eustace knocked down a guard that was trying to get at the count with his tail. "Say it so everyone can hear it. Lucy was not-is not-your apprentice. Lucy is not a witch. The testimony you gave is false!"
"Lucy is not a witch!" bawled Mr. Ketterley, loudly and hysterically enough to suit the occasion.
"There you have it," Edmund said, baring his teeth, lowering his sword. "Go away, Andrew, I have no interest in taking your life now."
And Andrew needed no further asking, he ran at once for his life, tripping over his own two feet and falling flat on his face several times doing so.
"This proves nothing," shouted the guard on who's account Caspian's back had been ripped up. "Anybody can withdraw testimony when threatened with a sword to their neck!"
Before anything else could be said, a panting Countess of the Western March arrived, her wrists no longer chained up, in the crowd.
"How," began Edmund; then he saw it: Aslan, the great Lion, standing at Lucy's right side, his mouth open and roaring. It was then that he realized that not only was Lucy freed from her chains but she also wasn't limping as she ran.
For the most part everyone seemed to cower down in the face of the great Lion, even those who had-some secretly-not truly believed in him; at any rate, weapons were being lowered and no one was fighting any longer.
But the guard who had said Edmund's proof of Lucy's innocence was invalid seemed disinclined to stop, despite the fact that he (and several persons present noticed this) would not look Aslan in the eyes exactly. He reached up with a dagger he had on his person, preparing to stab Edmund.
Lucy, noticing this, let out a little gasp, ripped a dwarf-sword with a black and silver hilt out of a sheath attached to the waist of a stocky dwarf standing not far from where she and Aslan were, and flung it at the guard with all her might. It struck the guard in the heart and he toppled over at once, dead although Lucy had not necessarily been aiming to kill, his dagger dropped uselessly on the ground.
"Enough," said Aslan, looking around disapprovingly, his large eyes solemn with disappointment. "This was uncalled for. Lucy Pevensie is no witch. You have called me into Narnia with your badness; I certainly hope the next time I visit it shall be for a better, more noble reason. For now, however, there is much that needs sorting before I depart again. First…" The Lion's eyes flickered over to Eustace. He dragged his huge, golden paw on the ground, scratching it, and the dragon felt as if someone was scratching off his own hard skin. It did sort of hurt, but it was a good kind of pain; like when you pull a thorn from your foot or peel away a scab.
With a flash of golden light, the dragon was a boy again, on his knees, eyes and limbs very weary, by the wreckage of the scaffold.
"Oh, Eustace!" cried Jill as she dropped her bow and arrows and raced excitedly over to his side.
AN: Please review.
