36 - Adam's Flesh And Adam's Bone
Peter and Oreius fought side by side, as they done through countless battles. The big centaur was older now, going grey, but no less the warrior than he had been all of Peter's reign. Oreius was the sum of the fierce pride in Narnia that was in the heart of every one of its soldiers.
For all that, Peter doubted they could hold back the tide of the Witch's army any longer. And he knew it for certain when he saw four giants tearing a path through the northwestern forest on their way to the castle.
It was time to use the book.
"I'll get one of 'em, least," bellowed a voice overhead.
Peter looked behind him to find Humrubble, a good giant who had defected from Ettinsmoor years ago. The giant stomped toward the forest, swinging a club.
"No!" Peter shouted. "I have a plan. Lift me up."
"Eh?" Humrubble scooped Peter into his palm and swooped him upward.
Peter ignored the dizzying whoosh as the giant brought him close to his ear. "There is a crate bearing a red mark in a wagon on our right flank. Bring it into their midst, Sir Giant, and open it, but do not look inside. When they've taken interest-and they will-you're to back away, and keep our troops from nearing it. Can you do that for me?"
"Sure, Yer Majesty. What's in it?"
"Our last resort," Peter said grimly.
Humrubble nodded, then set Peter down once more.
The next several minutes provided no opportunity to see how his plan was working, for then Peter was in a fight for his very life. Another wave of the Witch's foot soldiers had surrounded them. All he knew was swing-lunge-duck, and the stitch in his side grew worse and worse until he was nearly doubled over with the pain of it.
"We must retreat, Your Majesty," Oreius said. "Into the northern forests, if we can make it. The castle is lost, and their numbers are too great to manage a stand here. I will carry you."
Susan, he thought at once. Cori. Aidan. Despair sickened him. He couldn't leave them, not knowing if they were alive. How could he leave them? He scanned his weary, battling troops. How could he stay, and risk even greater loss?
"No one carries the King but me!" said a thunderous voice. Onyx plowed into a Black Dwarf closing in on their flank. He speared an orc with his horn, then knelt quickly at Peter's side. Peter swung onto the unicorn's back, and immediately the enemy began rushing at them again.
But with the greater height came a view of Peter's first hope. The draw of the Witch's golden book was working. The enemy giants had broken away from the fight to close in around the crate, and begun fighting one another instead. More and more of the Witch's soldiers joined them. Even as he watched, one of the giants fell, and did not move again.
True to his orders, Humrubble kept the Narnians back from the fray. "Thank you, Aslan," Peter whispered.
"Go!" Oreius shouted.
Onyx bolted, and Peter took advantage of their enemies' distraction with the book to shout, "Fall back to the forest!" With any luck, some of the dryads would still be awake. "Oreius, lead them!"
The centaur galloped toward the trees, crying the retreat. Peter and Onyx made to follow.
"Not leaving yet, are you?" came a cold voice behind them.
Onyx pivoted on his heel, and Peter found himself facing the White Witch. Her pale face and dress, paler than the snow around her, stood out against the grey and black smoke billowing from the castle.
She smiled. "I've just begun my victory celebration, Peter. Don't you want to join me?"
- # -
We've lost her, Asha thought, scanning the mob at the pier. They were holding back the remnants of the Calormenes with little trouble, but that wasn't what concerned her.
The White Witch had vanished, which could only mean she was headed for Cair.
Changing into a cloud of birch leaves, Asha rose into the air. She couldn't find the Witch anywhere her senses reached, but when she realized the scale of the battle on and around the castle, her heart sank. The Witch's forces were winning. When she finished crushing Narnia, her cold fist would squeeze the life out of Selbaran, too.
Aslan, Great Lion, she begged silently, how do I stop her?
Warmth fluttered past her. Asha landed on the pier and changed into her human form again. Meleyen, a Narnian dryad, held out Asha's bow to her. Asha took it, but all her attention was on the breeze flowing in from the sea.
That smell.
Cherry blossoms.
With a glad cry, she ran toward the end of the pier.
Mist gathered out at sea, the sort of mist that formed when cold winter air met the warmth of spring. And out of the mist came a ship. And another. And another. More and more, until the bay was filled with ships of every shape and color. All of the ships taken by The Phoenix and brought whole to the Faeries' Gate. Overhead flew the Faelings themselves.
And in the bow of the very first ship was Aslan.
When he landed, the Selbarani cheered. Their roar so frightened the Calormenes that they surrendered at once.
"Well met, daughter of the forest," Aslan said when Asha knelt before him. Behind him, the first of the ships was making its landing. Others, still in the bay, had begun lowering longboats.
"Your return is gladly welcomed, Aslan," Asha said, her heart full of joy for the Lion's arrival, and fear that they might be too late to aid the soldiers at Cair.
Aslan seemed to know this, and gave her a warm, wise nod. "Let us go to the battle, forest child, and finish it."
- # -
Edmund and Barton raced alongside Leina through the chaos of the battlefield. The ground had turned to a treacherous soup of slush and mud and Ed didn't want to think what else. Ahead, he saw Peter and Onyx the unicorn fighting the White Witch for all they were worth. The Witch caught Onyx a lucky blow, and the unicorn toppled. Peter rolled off Onyx's back and onto his feet.
Even as Barton galloped on, Edmund remained glued to that scene. You're overreaching! he thought, willing his brother to hear his him. Watch for the wand! The Witch kept Peter on the move, pressing him with her sword on one side, and her new wand on the other. Ed saw Peter was injured by the way he carried himself. Every thrust of the Witch's sword came closer to Peter's body. She seemed to be taunting him with the wand, saving her worst blow for last.
And then, with a flash of gleaming steel, she struck Peter's sword arm. Even from his distance, Ed heard the cry of pain. Rhindon dropped from Peter's fist, and the Witch used Peter's distraction to sweep his feet. As Peter went down clutching his arm, Edmund's heart shot into his throat.
Enemy soldiers sprang into their path. Leina took care of them so quickly that Barton hardly had to break stride.
The Witch loomed over Peter's prone form with a terrifying, wild leer and victory in her eyes. She raised her wand and prepared to strike. Barton closed in. All Ed could hear now was the stride of hoofbeats and the scrape of his own breath.
And then they were there. With a feral roar of his own, he leaped from Barton's back and over Peter's body. He smashed into the Witch and they both reeled backward. Gripping his sword and the ice wand, Edmund struck, hardly noting the shock in Jadis's eyes as she regained her balance. Again. Again. Again. Every time she went for Peter, Edmund drove her back with striking sword and slashing wand. Feet and hands and pounding heartbeat fused into the dance with death that he'd been expecting for twenty years.
"My wand," she hissed.
"No longer, Jadis," he said. Every fear he'd ever had of her was gone, a slate wiped clean. In its place was cool expectation. Not even death scared him now, because on the other side of that waited Aslan's Country. She could take nothing from him anymore.
She lunged with her new wand. Almost without thought, he raised the ice wand. It absorbed the bright flash and shuddered in his hand. He windmilled his sword, and as the blade came down, he sprang toward her.
Her sword clashed against his and screeched along the blade. Her elbow caught him across the mouth, and he tasted blood. Instead of leaning into her, he dodged backward.
The Witch stumbled, off balance. Edmund arced his blade in the other direction and slashed it along her arm.
True surprise washed across her features. She glanced at Peter, still twisting with agony on the ground, then touched her wand hand to her forearm and came away with blood. "An eye for an eye, Edmund?"
"I'd offer you surrender," he said, "but I know you'll never take it."
And they were on each other again, strike and dodge and twist and crash. The soldiers fighting around them blurred into nothing. Ed lurched forward with the ice wand, but she was just a second too fast and missed the stab by a breath. She fired a spell at him again. He dove out of the way and felt the heat of the blast flutter his ponytail.
"I rather miss the boy who cowered in his shoes before me, now I think on it," she taunted.
"You'll never meet him again," Ed shot back.
"Pity. I wonder then, if I might find new leverage to subdue him." She drew herself up to her full height, and her eyes blazed with mad fury. She sprang at him with her sword, smash-smash-smash, but as he was readying himself for another blow, she turned aside and pointed her wand at Peter. The tip glowed.
Edmund didn't even have to think. With a scream, he pounced in front of Peter's body, raised the ice wand, and the word flashed through his brain without effort: Strike!
The ice wand flashed. A streak of blue light shot from the end and engulfed the White Witch. Thunder boomed from the grey skies.
Shaking, gasping, Edmund stood his ground in front of his brother's body. Blinking to clear the blinding glare from his eyes, he wiped a trickle of blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
The glare cleared enough to reveal the Witch, still poised to attack. Edmund tensed to strike again ... but there was no need.
The Witch loomed over them, her face drawn in a hateful snarl, her wand poised ...
... frozen forever in stone.