I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I just enjoy watching them in pain. Rating has been upped thanks to this chapter.
The first thing Lucy felt was Susan's hand forcing her to her knees. The first thing she heard was the swish of a blade whistling through the air she'd just been occupying, and the first thing she did was to bring her dagger down upon the foot of her would-be assassin. The next thing she heard was the subsequent scream, and the rest of it erupted into melee.
She scrambled to her feet, whirling around to take stock of the chaos around her; Edmund and Peter were both in their element, fiercely battling the enemy away from Susan so that she could make use of her own weapon. Already she was squinting down the length of a red-fletched arrow. A second later, she released it and it sped through the rainfall and into the throat of one of their attackers. Lucy leapt to stab at a club-wielding man who was attempting to sneak up on her sister and thrust her dagger into the highest point of him she could reach: his shoulder. The sharp knife slit through the chain mail and the man roared in pain, clumsily swinging his own weapon at her, but she dodged it easily and threw herself at him again, stabbing into his other shoulder. He howled and fell to the ground, splattering Lucy with mud and blood.
She wasted no time thinking but hopped over his prone body and shot forward to form the third part of a triangle around Susan, dodging a sword swipe as she did so. It was extremely unnerving to have arrows flying out from just behind her head, but she had no choice but to trust her sister. Lucy jabbed her dagger at anything that moved, adrenaline surging through her in great waves; the rain was slamming down onto the battle ferociously and the screams of the wounded pierced the evening air like Susan's arrows through armor.
A tall woman wielding a long saber lunged towards Lucy suddenly. She screamed and jumped sideways, the blade missing her side by mere inches, but the woman was preparing for another slash and Lucy knew that her short weapon was no match. She dodged again frantically, looking for a way to get close enough to attack. Then her enemy changed tactics, charging her, her saber headed straight for Lucy's stomach, unavoidable, but there was a flash of red and blue and glinting silver, and Peter's shield knocked the blade away with a great clatter. His sword hummed through the air and abruptly, the woman was face-down upon the sodden earth, dead.
Lucy could not find the voice to yell thanks. Swallowing, she ducked the deadly path of a spiked mace and stumbled forward in the mud, then drove her dagger into the unprotected side of its owner.
Don't think about it, don't think about it, you can't afford to think about it right now, she told herself desperately. The mace-wielding man toppled to one side with a bellow of pain, and as he fell his weapon flew out of his hands and smashed painfully into Lucy's leather-booted shins. The force of the blow knocked her off balance and she fell backwards into the mud, catching herself on her elbows, still clutching her dagger in her right hand. She scrambled to rise again. Suddenly, there was a hand grabbing her leg, dragging her back down, and the man she'd just attacked snarled furiously at her as he forced her back to the ground. Uttering a cry of surprise and pain, she slashed at him with her dagger but the angle was wrong and it glanced off his mail tunic, his other arm darting out to grab her shoulders and force her to the ground.
He was on his hands and knees next to her, reaching into his cloak and pulling out a length of rope, when a sword blade erupted from his chest. With a gurgle he slipped sideways and the blade retracted, revealing a heavily breathing Edmund who quickly pulled his sister to her feet before hurling himself into the nearest foe. Lucy stood for a moment, panting. But the screams all around her brought her back to the present and she staggered sideways to dodge a hatchet swung by a short, stocky woman with a twisted face. Performing a quick duck-and-weave, the young queen shot forward and under the outstretched weapon to bring her dagger into the collar of her attacker, just above the armor. The woman screeched and gave a final, desperate swipe with her axe before she fell to the floor, writhing.
Lucy glanced frantically around. There were still so many! It seemed that even more grey-cloaked men and women had arrived since the start of the battle; even though more than a dozen lay wounded or slain on the muddy ground, there were still an equal number fighting and several others weaving through the trees towards them. A sick feeling grew in her stomach, knowing that they could not keep this up for much longer.
Susan was firing off arrows less frequently, as her arrows were growing fewer and she needed to pick her shots more carefully. Edmund was fighting viciously with a bear of a man wielding an enormous broadsword, using his agility to his advantage but obviously growing exhausted. The rain battered all without discrimination and turned the forest floor into a deadly mess of slick mud and compost. Abruptly, Lucy realized that she could not see Peter, but it was only the briefest moment before there was a flicker of blood-red from several meters away and she caught sight of him, surrounded by several grey-cloaked figures and battling valiantly against the odds, sword-blade dancing death for them. She took off towards them, launching herself onto the back of a tall man who was about to swing a club at her brother and thrusting her dagger into the back of his neck.
He screamed and fell backwards with her beneath him. As she thudded painfully into the ground, trapped beneath his bulk, she pulled her dagger from his flesh and squirmed out with great difficulty. Peter hewed down one of his assaulters and leapt to Lucy's defense as another attempted to drive his own dagger into her arm. Lucy realized suddenly that they seemed reluctant to kill; the mace-wielding man she'd stabbed earlier had only attempted to bind her, and whenever possible it seemed they aimed for non-fatal parts of the body. Obviously they were more intent on capture than kill.
And suddenly out of the pandemonium there came the most frightening sound Lucy thought she'd ever heard. Susan – her composed, calm sister – stumbled backwards and began to collapse, a horrible, prolonged scream ripping from her throat as a long dirk erupted just above her knee and a leering woman behind her let out a shriek of triumph. Time seemed to slow for Lucy, vaguely aware of Peter rushing past her and towards her sister as she watched her fall to the ground, still screaming in agony. The battle lulled for a moment to watch. Peter sprinted past them all, dropping his sword and ripping off his gauntlets before his fumbling fingers pulled the weapon from his sister's leg and shoved it through her attacker's stomach. Crimson life-fluid seeped through his fingers and he pressed his hands desperately to her wound, a gaping hole where her mail tunic ended at the bottom of her left thigh.
The moment was shattered when the spearbutt of the man who had initiated the battle rammed into Peter's stomach, doubling him over as he crumpled to the ground in anguish. Lucy was only half-aware that she and Edmund both screamed his name at the same time. Then Ed was bounding across the ground, bringing his sword down upon the spearhead that had been shooting towards his brother and severing it cleanly, then thrusting his blade through the chest of its owner. His frightened eyes turned to Peter, who looked up at him with a burning gaze.
"Winded. Can't run. Go!" Peter commanded. His hands groped for his sword, finally closing around its hilt even as more attackers rushed in towards them. Edmund stared for a moment, but his tone could not have been clearer, and his shaken mind did not dare disobey…
The last thing that Lucy felt was Edmund's hand dragging her away at breakneck speed, running pell-mell through the trees. The last thing Lucy heard was his broken sobs and gasping breaths, and the last thing she did was to realize with a lurch of her stomach that Peter's words might as well have been his own death sentence.
