I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I just...well, you'll have to read and find out this time.


Lucy awoke in the early hours to the frightening feeling of Edmund's chest convulsing beneath her head as he suffered through a long and painful bout of coughing and wheezing. Sliding her head away from him, she shook his shoulders roughly and blinked the sleep from her eyes.

"Ed," she mumbled insistently. "Sit up, Ed, you'll feel better."

He did, somewhat reluctantly, holding his stomach as he tried to suppress the fit. Lucy put a hand on the back of his neck since he wouldn't feel one on his back. When at last his breathing returned to a shaky but regular pattern, she stood and helped her older brother to his feet, then bent and retrieved Rhindon from where it lay in the grass. Edmund reached out to try and take it from her, but she fixed him with a glare and drew it away from him.

"If today is like yesterday, I'm carrying it," she said irately. He shrugged his shoulders, muffling a cough in his arm, and looked back up through sleepy eyes.

" Breakfast?" he asked feebly.

"Not yet," she answered, checking to make sure her dagger was in place before striding confidently in the first direction that sparked her fancy. "First food we come to you can eat."

Edmund followed her, much more steady on his feet than the day before. She cast a glance in his direction to make sure he was capable of walking, then led the way through the forest yet again. About fifteen minutes later they came to a collection of low bushes that bore something vaguely reminiscent of blackberries, ate their fill and moved on. Lucy didn't know quite whether she had any hope for finding the centaurs left. They had probably given up searching now, after two days, although with the monarchs missing they might have called up the army in suspicion of foul play.

Her thoughts drifted back to her oldest brother and sister. If the dwarf (she remembered him with an angry shudder that made Edmund ask if she was all right) hadn't been lying, then they hadn't been killed, and if they hadn't been killed there was good reason to assume that they wouldn't be killed at all. Still, the thought of either of them in the grasp of the twisted mercenaries that had so nearly captured them all made her made a deep and unfamiliar anger burn in the pit of her stomach. She furrowed her brow and journeyed on.

Remembering more of the dwarf's words, she felt a pang of worry. He'd said Susan wasn't in good shape. Lucy had seen many people survive wounds like Susan's, but if left unattended it could grow infected and if infected…she didn't want to think about it. Only one option was permissible, and that was rescuing them. Aslan knew they'd earned it a thousand times over, what with Susan keeping them from doing anything unbelievably reckless and Peter rushing to save their backs countless times in the few years they'd been in Narnia.

"Lu?" Edmund asked suddenly, jolting her out of her daydreams. He sounded slightly worried. She looked back over her shoulder at him, then turned around completely at the look on his face. He was holding his head high, eyes intent on space as if trying to hear something very far off.

"What is it, Ed?"

He stayed frozen for a moment more before tilting his head to one side and giving her a half-confused, half-alarmed look.

"Do you smell smoke?"

"No," she said instantly, but she sniffed anyway. Her eyes opened wide in surprise. "Yes!"

It was, unmistakably, the smell of a fire. The faintest whiff of burning wood was being carried towards them on the light wind, just barely noticeable amid the stronger smells of decaying plants and the other natural processes of the forest.

"A campfire," exclaimed Lucy optimistically. She looked over at Edmund, who had just said "a forest fire," and frowned slightly even as he grinned hopelessly and shrugged his shoulders.

"We'd better look into it," he said. She nodded, pausing for a moment to find out which way the wind was blowing, then changed her course to go against it and probably to where the smell was coming from. Edmund ran a step to walk beside her. After about ten minutes, the smoke in the air was thickening and Lucy felt a small amount of discomfort when breathing. Sharing a glance with her brother, they began to keep their eyes open for a blaze, contained or not, unease growing as they realized that it was too much smoke to just be a campfire.

By the time they figured out where it was coming from, there wasn't much hope of escaping it. There was a flicker of flame to their right, then another to their right and yet another ahead of them, and suddenly it was closing in on them from every side, eating up the trees greedily. Lucy unconsciously stepped back to grab Edmund's arm fearfully as three sides of her vision were consumed by ravenous tongues of fire. It happened so abruptly that it rendered her completely unable to think. She could only stare in horror, clutching Rhindon with one hand and her brother with the other, paralyzed at the sight of the rapidly spreading blaze.

Edmund, conversely(1), snapped into action the instant he perceived the danger. Grabbing hold of his sister's arm he pulled her back the way they'd come, breaking into a run and heading for the gap in the forest that had not yet been consumed by the fire. She stumbled along at his side, trying to match his longer strides as he dragged her to safety. But all of a sudden her feet collided with something unseen, and the thought that she must not have been looking at the ground properly passed through her head before she was face-first on it, her hand wrenched from Edmund's.

"Lucy!" he shouted, turning back his heel and dropping to his knees. He hoisted her up by the shoulders but she staggered forward, dazed, unbalanced by the weapon she still resolutely held on to. He attempted to take it from her but she shook her head and blinked hard; once, twice, then she was off running again with Edmund just ahead.

The tiny delay had cost them their escape. Lucy's stomach plummeted as she glimpsed the flames cut off the last bit of underbrush not already consumed. But her brother did not stop; instead he pulled her arm more insistently and quite nearly threw her across the barrier of fire. She screamed as the heat washed over her in a boiling wave but scrambled further away, now thankfully on the other side, out of the deadly circle. A second later saw Edmund bursting through behind her, yanking her to her feet and sprinting outright with his sister racing behind him.

Something burst from the undergrowth beside them. Lucy felt it slam into her side painfully, and then she was again falling down to the earth, a frantic cry for help escaping her lips. When she regained enough sense to open her eyes and see what it was she saw the foul, twisted face of a goblin looming above her, wearing a grey cloak just like the ones the mercenaries had been wearing. It whipped out a long knife and looked about to slit her throat but suddenly Edmund threw himself at it bodily. The two rolled off Lucy, her brother now with sword drawn and began to grapple with each other, furious yells ripping from their throats.

Struggling to her feet, Lucy looked up to see more grey-cloaked figures heading towards them, the fire cutting off their escape in the other direction. Already the smoke was making her feel heavy and tired, her thinking less clear, and her limbs, they took so much effort to hold up…she shook her head vigorously and hefted Rhindon. She held the weapon before her with what she hoped was a threatening look.

"Stay back," she began, but she began to cough violently. The air was so thick! Edmund rose to his feet beside her, sword dripping with goblin blood, a nauseated expression written clearly across his face.

"What do you want?" he rasped. His breathing, already made weak from his near-drowning the day before, was coming in ragged gasps now and Lucy was seized by an intense feeling of panic. With the smoke, he certainly wouldn't last much longer.

"Surrender, Son of Adam," a dwarf in the crowd surrounding them called mockingly. The creatures didn't seem to be bothered by the fire at all, but the pulsing heat waves of the nearing flames made Lucy's tired mind reel with a sort of confused pain. The world around her was growing slightly fuzzier, dimmer, and the shimmer of the heat surrounded everything in her vision.

Just as she began to slip into unconsciousness, there came a sun-filled moment when Lucy thought she heard the pounding of centaur hooves. But then there were only the screams of the creatures around her, and she wondered drowsily if Edmund was already on the ground that was rushing up to meet her. Screams, air, heat, scorching, burning, too hot…it all began to slip away. Someone was trying to pry her fingers off the hilt of Rhindon but she would not let go. Finally they desisted, but instead a rough palm descended upon the back of her clenched hand, a palm so familiar that Lucy could somewhat appreciate the delusional state she was in.

"Peter…" she mumbled thickly, and relinquished the weapon to the inquiring hand. The small part of her brain that remained conscious screamed at her to open her eyes and see that it was not her brother, it couldn't be, but then she'd been scooped up into strong arms and carried swiftly away. There was a low, affectionate chuckle that reverberated in the chest she was pushed up against, and then the darkness claimed her.


(1) No, that wasn't originally intended to be a Skandar Keynes reference, but it cracks me up all the same.