Threads

Chapter 11

Edmund looked at the party that accompanied them to the Telmarine Castle. Two wolves, one with gray coating and the other with white fur, Reepicheep's company of mice and the two monarchs. The mission was simple, Edmund repeated to himself, in and out in a second.

The company followed the mice, who knew where the castle was located. Edmund could make good guesses, based on the journey he'd taken with Eirene, but Narnian landscape had changed so much that he didn't want to risk it.

He noticed how Lucy was mostly mute, and how she constantly shifted on her seat.

"Feeling nervous, Lu?" Edmund asked.

"Oh, does it look like it? I'm sorry…" His sister erupted in nervous laughter.

"I guess we are all feel a bit jumpy," Edmund said, thoughtfully.

He was certainly nervous too, except that he didn't knew why exactly.

Finding Rhindon. Finding Eirene, he thought, prevent a coup d'etat. Quick and simple.

"Hey, Ed," Lucy said again after some while, around halfway through the road, "d'you reckon we'll be successful? Given—" Lucy trailed off, but Edmund could guess his sister's question.

"—nobody has actually been inside the castle?" Edmund lowered his voice, a half smirk appearing on his face in the attempt at lighting Lucy's mood.

"I mean, yeah, except you," Lucy smirked.

"If you call getting hit in the head and then losing consciousness actually being inside the castle then—"

"Oh," Lucy said, "you know what I mean," this time with an honest laugh coming from her lips as she punched her brother on the arm jokingly.

Edmund laughed, too.

"It should be fine, Lu," he said, massaging the part of his arm Lucy had hit.

Lucy narrowed her eyes as she noticed what her brother was doing.

"Oh, come on, did it really hurt you?" she laughed, and Edmund shook his head while smiling. Lucy let out a breezy laugh and returned to look at the road ahead.

Edmund could imagine perfectly well what Lucy was feeling; the jitters before his very first battle. He remembered wondering about how it would be, how would it end. He remembered the dread that came from not knowing what to expect. The mystery of it all.

Of course, this raid wasn't supposed to be a battle, but it was the closest Lucy had been to any of the sort.

Edmund returned his gaze to his sister.

"But really, Luce" he said breathing in and looking at Lucy with the most serious expression he could muster, "it will be fine. It's just a castle. In and out."

Lucy nodded, but Edmund wasn't sure if he had actually said it to comfort his sister, or to comfort himself.

Eirene woke with a loud noise. Startled, her mind tried to make out the noise before her eyes were able to flutter open. It was a lion's roar.

She sat on the mattress, and looked around her room. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness that came from the corners of the room, but eventually landed on the fireplace. A lit fireplace.

Eirene noticed her unwilling shiver, and wasted no time in coming closer to the fire. As she sat on the floor, still wrapped around her only woolen blanket, she noticed dancing figures.

She blinked one, two times before looking into the fireplace again. The flames were dancing. But they weren't flames—they looked like female figures, dancing in groups.

She brought her shackled hands closer to the fire, trying to warm herself as she watched the display. But she blinked again, and they were gone. She stayed by the fire, gathering the warmth she'd missed for days.

The night outside her window seemed calm, and for a brief second her soul felt at peace, too. Feeling her limbs warm, she stood and walked over to the view. She'd thought about breaking the window glass a couple of times, but what good could it have done? Her chambers were high up from the courtyard.

She looked at the stillness, some of the cobble stones gleaming with an almost full-moon. Rain droplets began to fall against the window pane.

But visibility was getting worse by the second, but it was then that she thought she had seen something.

They looked like two male figures, and one female, judging by the flow of her skirt. The woman stopped in the middle of the courtyard. She seemed to have a bow, pointing her arrow to someone. She fired and continued on, but Eirene couldn't make out to what exactly she had shot at. They crossed the courtyard in a hurry and disappeared.

The castle loomed over the raiding company as they remained hidden in the shrubs and trees around the castle's moat. The night had been clear along the road: moon shining, but now rain was beginning to fall.

Edmund watched the guards in the towers move with torches on their hands. There were only a few of them, and the castle gate looked open. It was strange, some sort security flaw. Edmund squinted his eyes trying to make sense of the shadows, just in case there were other people ahead of them.

"Well then," Reep said, making all his mice gather around him and the rest of the party focusing on him too. "I'll get the mice through the gatehouse, and lure the guards away. The road will be free for you lot."

"We'll go in first, your grace," the white wolf said.

"We'll make sure no more guards persist on the courtyard," the gray wolf continued, "once we're all in, we can begin tracking the princess' scent."

Everyone nodded, but Lucy gathered her breath.

"Where did you take it from?" Lucy asked, her voice laced with general nervousness.

"We remember your grace—" the wolf said, bowing its head, "and we used Edmund's clothes as a reminder."

Ah, my English clothes, Edmund thought.

Lucy nodded, and looked down, rubbing her hands together to bring them some warmth. She didn't ask anymore questions then, but knowing his sister, Edmund knew he would be interrogated later on as to why exactly would his clothes be impregnated with the princess' scent.

Edmund was clearly not a child anymore, and he still felt his ears going pink at the thought.

"Shall we, then?" he said, clearing his throat and his thoughts.

The mice immediately ran over to the castle. It only took a couple of seconds before they saw Reep's silhouette telling them to approach. The wolves left immediately, and the siblings dismounted their horses. Lucy turned to her brother.

"Is it always this quick?"

She noticed Edmund had his eyebrows knitted together. He shook his head.

"Not usually. It's strange…"

The opened gate. The absence of guards. Something was off.

Feeling the water filtering within his clothes, Edmund and Lucy advanced unto the castle.

The courtyard was clear when they reached it. And although visibility couldn't be worse anymore because of the increased rain, there didn't seem to be any bodies sprawled on the ground. Edmund looked at Reepicheep, who shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe someone is here, too, but they don't want to be discovered, either," Edmund said.

"Do you think they're here for Eirene, too?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know, Lu. Hopefully we won't have to find out exactly."

He moved his head in the direction of the wolves, and signaled Lucy to follow them. Eirene's scent was probably erased by the rain, they needed to move within the castle if they wanted to find something.

Eirene kept looking out, and after a few minutes saw other small figures crossing the courtyard, too. These were tiny, though. It looked like they walked on four legs. Animals? Her heart beat faster. Narnians.

Confused, she kept looking out the window as the Narnians dissolved into the shadows. Lightning painted the sky purple for a second, giving her more visibility over the courtyard. Her window shook with thunder when she made out two more figures; another man and another woman. They disappeared faster than the previous group.

Excitement surged through Eirene's body, her heart threatened to escape her body.

Something was going to happen, and she needed to get out.

Lighting brought purple light that illuminated the surroundings. The wolves guided them further within the castle, and another loud thunder shook through them as the rain began drenching them.

The party then divided, the mice went up a tower to explore the upper floors, and the wolves were directed towards the dungeons. It was the easy guess, thinking she had been taken there.

When the wolves smelled the entry to the dungeons and descended afterwards, Edmund's heart sank. He prayed to Aslan he wasn't chained somewhere inside as he followed the canines. Lucy tried to follow behind.

"Stay here, Lu," he told his sister, "you'll be our watch."

"But what if there are guards—"

"We'll be quick, Lu, promise!" he didn't stay to listen to anything else.

Edmund watched as one of the wolves returned to be with Lucy as he descended unto the dungeons and saw the other a few feet away from him.

It was an empty corridor, not even lit with torches. Edmund followed him quietly, as he sniffed under every cell door.

Edmund's hairs were on end, looking at every shadow, hearing every noise. But there was nothing than leaks falling down to the stoned floor. But the wolf was sniffing intently, she had to be there somewhere.

Edmund began to look within every cell, watching the shadows, in case anything moved. Everything was still, but behind him footsteps echoed. Edmund turned around immediately his sword unsheathed as he tried to make out the incoming running shadows.

"It's me!" Lucy spoke loudly. Edmund sighed in relief.

"You scared me half to death, Luce—"

"We need to leave. The mice returned—upstairs."

"Let's go then—" Edmund said without further ado, his stomach lurching in anticipation of the possibility that they'd found Eirene.

"No, wait!" Lucy placed her hand on her brother's chest, "I mean leave, leave."

"What? But if she's upstairs—"

"Guards are returning to their posts and—"

It was then that the military alarm broke out. Shrilling into their skulls, they were met by an out of breath Reepicheep.

"Your graces—the princess. Guards were stationed at a door upstairs—we took them down but…"

The alarm grew louder.

"We'll be outnumbered," Edmund said, as his mind tried to find a way out of the situation.

Just outside the threshold Edmund stopped dry on his footsteps.

"Callista!" Edmund called to the white wolf, "Go back to the How, and bring a griffin with you—"

"What? Ed—" Lucy had also stopped and returned to her brother.

"We've come this far—we know where the princess is," he nodded towards Reepicheep, "the mission is still on."

"But-what? A griffin, Edmund? Wha—"

"I'll get her, and we'll be in and out. The griffin will fly us out."

The wolves were at the door, growling. Lucy was locked into the place.

"But Edmund, the alarm…"

The courtyard was beginning to get filled with soldiers, ones that Edmund recognized as Telmarine and others that he didn't know. There weren't any narnians, only human soldiers. It was clearly an attack, but he wasn't sure who was it supposed to favor.

Reepicheep came back and pulled Lucy from the hem of her boot.

"I don't mean to intrude, but we need to leave, now!"

Lucy gave her brother a final look before following Reepicheep unto the shadows. Edmund moved from corner to corner into the tower and up the stairs.

Eirene's heart pounded on her weak ribcage. She didn't understand what was happening exactly, but something within her told her it was good.

Another lightning hit the sky, and along the thunder rumble, the bells began to sound. It was the crisp military alarm. Eirene moved away from the window and into the middle of her room. She never thought she'd be glad to hear that horrible, shrilling sound.

It was then that the clanking of swords and boots bumping against the lower frame of her door began. The bells continued and she heard more people shouting. She returned quickly to her window, but saw nothing strange in the courtyard. Nothing but more Telmarine soldiers running about.

"Ensure the princess stays inside!"

She returned to her door, and banged on with all her might.

"Let me out! Let me out! Do as I say!—" she banged as loudly as she could, "this is treason!"

She continued banging the door, hitting it with her shoulder and pushing it with all her might. But no one stirred, no one answered her claims. She shouted in frustration and looked around her now dimly lit chambers.

Her eyebrows shot up her forehead and her mouth fell open when she remembered she wasn't entirely weaponless. Her sword had been taken away, but she was sure that she'd hidden a dagger somewhere in her room, at some point of her adolescence. Maybe she could try to pick the lock on her handcuffs with it.

Eirene pulled out all of the drawers in her wardrobe, and in her desk, frantically looking for it. Clothes were sprawled on her floor, and drawers were set a top of one another. It had to be there—why hadn't she remembered it before?

She opened the cedar wood chest that rested in front of her bed. There was nothing but a couple of old dresses and a couple of books. She'd forgotten about them too.

The sounds outside her door intensified. Grunting and sword fighting.

"Mice?!" she heard one of the men say.

Her heart raced, and she couldn't help a small smile appearing on her lips as she returned to her task. She threw everything and almost missed the sound of the dagger falling to the floor.

Quickly, she returned to grab the book she'd just thrown away, where the sound originated from. The book that it had been hidden in was labelled Folktales, and had a golden lion on its cover. Sprawled on the floor, and just beside it was the damned dagger.

Suddenly, the noise outside her door ceased. Eirene walked back to it, careful. She placed her ear against the wooden door again, but there was silence too. No light filtered in from underneath it; Eirene guessed it was covered by bodies.

"Reepicheep?" Eirene said, but there was no response.

"Reep?!" she repeated, a little louder this time.

But there was nothing but silence.

Eirene banged on the door.

"Hey!"

She continued hitting it.

"Hey! Somebody!"

But there was nothing.