this chapter single-handedly ruined my work ethic for two months so go easy on me ok i'm in a fragile state
but a big thank you to the guest who left a very lovely comment on chapter 17, it gave me a well needed boost during my work shift. :)
Lucy whirled round to face her brother. "Edmund, what did you just think of?"
He looked at her with terror in his eyes, the words caught in his throat like a wicked barb. He was a fish on a hook, trapped in the prolonged second before being reeled in by whomever would be waiting to take his life, accepting that this, whatever this was, was the end.
The Dawn Treader shuddered and tipped starboard, throwing its occupants to the ground; swords clattering to the deck and skittering away from reaching palms before the ship righted itself. Amber slipped and collapsed in an undignified heap, wincing as her skull made contact with the edge of the stairs.
She hauled herself up on unsteady legs and tried to ignore how her vision swam before her, reaching a hand behind her head as if she could cradle the pain.
Beneath her, the ocean churned with a sudden ferocity, ravaging the ship with waves as black and impenetrable as the night sky while above the clouds laughed deep at their despair, letting loose a merciless tear of white-hot electricity.
Gael, who had emerged onto the deck unnoticed when they had found Lord Rhoop, wandered towards the railing. She lay a light palm on the handrail and leaned over to peer into the sea. What had made them stomp around and yell so loud? What great creature had tipped the ship? Her father always said she was too curious for her own good. Too rash. But just like she had done many times before, she ignored him.
A ribbon of translucent green fins greeted her from the water. It was close enough to the boat that she could see how the veins inside glowed bright, and that the scales on the beasts' great hide writhed with colour as if they were alive. Like the skins of thousands of fish coming together as one.
It could have been beautiful. Green was her favourite colour after all. But this was wrong.
Fear injected itself into her veins and burned jade.
She stumbled back as she watched a tail as large as her bed flick through the water, all while the poison in her grew, scraping itself through her head as it sought her deepest fears and tried to tug them to the surface.
Her back hit the mast and the creature burst free.
Lucy was by her side in seconds, taking her small hand between her own and guiding her quickly downstairs. Caspian, meanwhile, scrabbled across the deck to Amber.
"Go with them. Please, I can't have you here." He pleaded.
Her eyes didn't meet his. They couldn't. "Caspian." She breathed, looking out past the ship.
"Please, just go where you'll be safe. Amber, I beg of you." He asked once more, squeezing her hand as if it would be the last chance to do so.
"Caspian. Look." Finally, he turned.
Through the dimly lit fog rose a serpent. It towered above the Dawn Treader and gazed at the crew with blackened eyes, a deep rumbling reverberating from its chest. Like Gael had already glimpsed, every scale across its tree-trunk thick body was glistening green, but this wasn't like the previous forms the mist took on. This was different. They couldn't wave their hand through this mirage, and – even if they could – they daren't try.
The serpent prepared to strike.
"LOOK OUT!" Tavros yelled.
A jet of fire sliced the air and, for a single, terrible second, presented the beast with a clarity the darkness was charitable enough to hide. Its snout, much like a dragon's though with an unhinged jaw, was drawn back to reveal hundreds of deadly sharp teeth, already stained red. The serpents skin pulsed with life, forged from Dark Island's worst depths, it thrived with each pounding heartbeat, every sharply drawn breath and restrained scream, taking each manifestation of their fear to feed its insatiable hunger.
Eustace drove the serpent from the ship, plunging his claws deep into its skull and flapping his wings wildly. The crew watched on helplessly as the pair battled, their hopes sinking by the second.
Hardly one hour ago they believed Eustace to be a giant, unparalleled in both strength and size, but now he looked as small as they felt.
The serpent caught Eustace between its jaws and tossed him astride the rocks carelessly.
Lucy joined the others at the railing and watched on in horror. "Eustace…" She breathed.
Amber swallowed the lump in her throat and placed her left hand over the young Queen's, her right still clutching tight to Caspian's. All they could do was hold faith close to their hearts.
Eustace clawed at the rock, his eyes alight with a mixture of pain and determination that was so achingly human. And when the serpent descended on him with open jaws and razor-sharp teeth, he fought back.
A second cloud of raging fire cut the air in two as Eustace burned away the serpent's flesh, its scales rippling and cracking to reveal throbbing green flesh beneath, soon charred black. Eustace collapsed again; his energy spent but with hope fluttering in his stomach. How can the beast attack without eyes to seek with? Without jaws to bite with?
It plunged low into the water and sent a vicious wave crashing against the ship, but the crew were prepared this time. They clung on, hunched low, and gazed into the water apprehensively.
Everyone except, of course, Lord Rhoop.
"STAND BACK!" He cried, pressing his jutting elbows into stomachs as he fought his way through the crew to the edge of the ship. "BE GONE, DEMON!" With a single, precise swing, the seventh sword arced high in the air and landed in Eustace's front leg.
The crew descended into a clamour of angry shouts, reaching their arms uselessly out to the sea where Eustace released a pained roar and flew into the thickening clouds, his golden tail flickering in a thin shaft of sunlight before disappearing from sight completely.
"EUSTACE! COME BACK!" Lucy cried. Though her anguish was torn – they needed the sword buried in his flesh, she was aware of that, but she also wanted her cousin back. She had left so much go unsaid. How she was happy to have him by her side, claws and all, and how the Dawn Treader could hardly begin to gather their thanks for all his invaluable help.
Though she didn't know if he would permit such an affectionate gesture, she wished to give him a hug. She would at least try, she decided firmly, when they reunited – because they would reunite. Aslan wouldn't allow anything less. No matter the despair or the panic, the times her wishful calls had gone unanswered, or the evil that sang its sinister tune inside her head, she knew that much were true.
"We need to get out of here – now." Caspian ordered, casting a final, wary glance into the water, hoping that it wasn't a glimmer of emerald scales he spied deep down below.
"OUT OF MY WAY!" Lord Rhoop stumbled his way to the wheel and jerked it left, throwing everyone once more to the sodden deck as he manoeuvred them ungracefully towards the far away sun.
"Looks like somebody's already ahead of you." Amber murmured beside Caspian. They shared an uneasy look; The unstable Lord was going to be a liability if they all wanted to escape this journey alive.
With a quick, almost absentminded squeeze of her hand, Caspian bolted to the stairs while the men around him regained their footing. Thankfully Drinian, ever practical though sometimes morally grey, concussed the frail Lord with a solid strike on the back of his skull and regained control over their nearing freedom.
Amber's hope raised its tentative head. It didn't dare believe that they had been fortunate enough to dispatch of the sea serpent completely, but it wasn't likely that the creations of Dark Island could exist beyond its bubble of shadows and terror. All they needed was to reach the sun. That was all. The ache for it grew physically painful, a gnawing in her stomach that ate away at her other thoughts. She didn't think she could handle seeing that beast again.
Her journey across the Narnian seas had not lacked its fair share of terrifying ordeals, from the dufflepuds on Coriakin's Island (while invisible, of course), the slave traders in Doorn – even her first day aboard the Dawn Treader was a unique sort of fear she could've never prepared for. But the sea serpent was none of that. It was death – imminent and painful. She had brushed cheeks with the end before, night after night in London when the sirens blared and the ground shook, but she had no shelter now. There was no ground for her to bury herself under, no alarms to forewarn their doom. Her fear of the sea serpent burrowed deep into her very soul and fashioned itself a home, its strength fuelled by the infectious centre of Dark Island.
The end was in sight. Far in the distance, shafts of light filtered through the clouds, making the water shine like liquid gold. It was enchanting. The crew watched the light shimmer. Waving at them. Beckoning them closer. None of them thought to check the water beneath them. The sight was too mesmerising to look away from.
For a second, everything went quiet.
The water whispered its familiar, comforting song.
The ship mast creaked as it swayed high above.
Steady exhales were marked with clouds of hot breath in the air.
And then the world erupted.
With an ear-splitting screech the serpent exploded from the water and threw itself across the ship, thumping down hard on the deck and splintering the railing beneath its weight. Men scattered to the sides, but another thick coil of scales shot across the deck as the beast wound its way around the Dawn Treader and began to squeeze. Amber felt courage drain from her like blood from a wound.
They could feel the planks of the ship groaning with the effort of staying intact, thin rivulets of water trickling in through the gaps as the crew below rowed with a renewed vigour to free them from Dark Island. The ship tipped sideways, and a wave arched high to soak the deck and its passengers, sending men slipping into the serpent's slimy hide.
Amber followed the tactic of several others on board in attempting to spear the serpent between its scales, sever it from their weary ship, but it had grown too strong, too impenetrable. They ran below for harpoons and arrows, while those up high strategised with distractions and pillars of stone, all while she remained in the middle – lost, helpless, and utterly afraid.
She didn't want to die like this. Watching from the sidelines as those more skilled than she fought to keep their lives while she could merely pray and hope to keep her footing steady and out of reach of the serpent's hungry jaws. The last thing she wanted was to die having made no attempt to live, to let the beast drain her life because she couldn't draw a bow or throw a spear, but what other choice was there? This fight wasn't just for her – it was for all of them, and the consequences of any rash decision would extend past her own being. She wouldn't allow that. She couldn't.
But in the end, when a second is all she would have to make a decision that could either save or end lives, did she really have a choice?
"BRACE YOURSELVES!" Caspian cried from the wheel up above. But Amber didn't hear him. She didn't hear anything.
The Dawn Treader slammed into the sea serpent before them, pinning the livid monster against the rocks embedded in the sea. All around her the men clung onto whatever they could find, bracing their feet the best they could against the tremendous shudder than travelled through the ship. Amber fell roughly to the ground, her head meeting the splintered railing scattered on the deck with a dull, heavy thud.
Her body shuddered like the ship, pain burning through her entire body in seconds. A smaller, though no less vicious, serpent thrashed in her head, and Amber wanted nothing more than to let herself fall limp on the ground if only it would stop the pain. But she didn't.
As the others watched the serpent's wounds burn gold and green, Amber raised herself on shaky legs and wiped fresh blood from her head. Her vision blurred, everything smudging together into a cloud of grey and green and brown. Her head felt twice as heavy as it should be, and all that could be heard was the pounding of her own heart and the rush of blood in her veins, all too eager to flee through the opening in her forehead.
Slowly, shapes began to define themselves; not entirely – but just enough for her to understand.
To understand that the serpent had not given in just yet, that Dark Island had yet to end its mission to claim their lives and their fears, that the fight was far from over.
Its body rippled and opened with a series of clicks and clacks, revealing hundreds of spines that shivered as if sentient. Edmund stood opposite the beast on the deck, feeling like its eyes were searing his flesh, like his own body would open up in a similar fashion and all his deepest, darkest fears would come spilling out and become real.
The crew stood frozen in terror as Edmund forgot how to breathe.
Caspian yelled for his friend, refusing to tear his eyes away from him while the serpent reared back to strike from the corner of his eye.
Amber saw, vaguely, the two Kings in direct reach of the hands of death. She ran forward.
Caspian launched himself into Edmund and braced himself as they skidded across the deck.
The serpent dived and clamped its jaws around the teetering mast.
Its spines buried in the deck, and one, long and spotted black, slid deep into Amber's stomach.