I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I just received a whole lot of death threats when I got stuck grappling with writer's block. You guys are brutal!
Notice: To anyone following "The Way Things Are" by A. Amelia Black (and if you aren't, you should be, it's quite lovely), know that she's been blocked from updating until next Monday, so don't be impatient with her.
"Citizens of Charn!" cried Zale, her scepter held high. The men and women who had stepped from the portraits did not so much as flinch. "The murderers of your kinsman are here! Finally you shall have revenge!"
She needn't have goaded them on. Lucy saw Peter deftly dispatch one of them with a quick sword maneuver before she had her own foe to watch out for, a towering woman holding a javelin which she thrust towards the youngest queen. Dropping into a crouch, Lucy swept her dagger across the ankles of her attacker. The woman did not cry out but fell, lips parted in a silent scream. Even as she collapsed, she made another desperate lunge with her weapon outstretched, attempting to puncture Lucy's stomach, a move that was easily avoided. Lucy suddenly became aware that the painted people made no noise. While it was interesting, it was not important, and the warrior instinct rising within her tossed the information aside and focused on more important things, like defending Susan so that she could use her bow and arrow.
Something cold and wet suddenly surged around her ankles. With a surprised shout, she jumped out of the shallow water that had abruptly poured in from the windows. She looked up in time to see two things: Zale had just completed a complex gesture with her scepter, which Lucy guessed had brought in the water, and there was a burly man about to swing a chain-and-ball-type weapon at her sister's head. Hurtling forward, she leapt at him and drove her dagger into the arm which held his weapon. He let go of it, one of his legs jerking up to knock her away as his arm gushed a strange, pulpy, flesh-colored substance that she suddenly realized was paint.
Lucy slashed at the man again, this time across his chest, and her dagger slid through his armor as he fell back with a look of fierce rage upon his face. She fell with him, just barely managing to withdraw her dagger and scramble upright before the next opponent was upon her. This time it was a hook-nosed man with two long, thin swords, leering as he whirled both of them around at blurring speeds. Lucy felt one of them rush by the side of her head and cried out fearfully. A second after there was a dull thock and the man was splashing down into the ankle-high water, one of Susan's arrows protruding from his chest, one sword still flailing desperately. Kicking the weapon away from him, Lucy stood and caught her breath for a moment.
The numbers of the portrait people were dwindling fast, and her family had yet to take any serious injuries. Ed had a thin cut across his right cheek and Susan was favoring her left arm, but it seemed the battle would be won quite easily. The water was still pouring in from the windows, however, and Lucy noticed with increasing trepidation that if it got much higher she would have trouble moving. Throwing a quick glance up, she noticed that Zale was standing behind the struggling painting-warriors and spinning her scepter in intricate patterns, webbed fingers deftly twirling it as she brought wave after wave crashing down into the room.
"Lucy!" called Susan suddenly, and she felt a hand close over her shoulder, forcing her down. Something heavy whooshed over her head and collided with the wall with dangerous force. Stone crumbled, showering down into the water and spraying both sisters thoroughly. Lucy struggled to her feet, taking a defensive stance as a thin-lipped woman charged towards her with a spiked club. Susan had apparently fallen while pulling Lucy out of harm's way, and was still struggling to regain her footing in the waves that were now up to the younger queen's calves.
The club came smashing down towards them. Lucy sidestepped it, her movement slightly sluggish due to the water, and as the woman struggled to recover from the momentum of her attack she drove her dagger into a chink in her enemy's armor. The woman went rigid and slipped sideways to join the increasing number of figures in the shallows. Lucy reached out a hand and helped Susan to her feet, and the both of them scanned the thinning ranks for their brothers, their red tunics stark against the faded portrait colors. Edmund was dueling with two sinister-looking men at once, but not having a hard time with it; the picture people didn't seem to be very powerful. Peter, meanwhile, had broken through their ranks and had taken to slashing apart the canvases themselves. The reason became apparent a second later as the untouched canvas nearest Lucy suddenly had a new occupant, who jumped out at the two sisters with a double-bladed dagger in hand.
Susan made quick work of him and before he even had a chance to attack, he was splashing down with an arrow through his heart. They quickly took to destroying more of the paintings themselves, since Ed didn't seem to need any help, and within half a minute there were only a few left untouched in the hall. The water was now at the level of Lucy's knees, and the bodies on the floor were disintegrating like paper. Peter helped Ed to finish off the last of the picture people, and as Lucy and Susan took care of the rest of the portraits and waded over to join them, they stood in a line, breathing hard, staring at Zale, who was still standing in the door and looking murderous.
"Imitations!" said Susan disdainfully. "Everything here is an imitation! Paintings and mirrors and illusions – whatever power you have is only a copy of the power that remains in this castle, and a weak one at that!"
"You stupid girl!" spat Zale, looking very angry but somehow very juvenile. Her cheeks were flushed and she stood there, shaking and glaring at them. "Is this an illusion?"
She gestured to the rising waves in the room, and Lucy became aware of just how cold it was. The waters had been above her boots for a little while but she hadn't noticed their absolute frigidity.
"You have intruded upon my lake and disturbed my sanctuary!" the nymph accused. "You have entered this land by chance, taken it captive through luck and lies! Perhaps this new, weak Narnia will bow at your feet, but I stand against you as I stood against Jadis!"
"Then you've missed something entirely, because we aren't Jadis," said Edmund exasperatedly. Zale's glare snapped to him, a sick smile twisting her thin lips.
"No?" she said. "Who is to say you do not carry some of her poison in you still, blood-traitor?"
"That is long forgiven," said Peter angrily.
"You forget treachery so hurriedly!" shrieked Zale, suddenly furious. The water was creeping up Lucy's thighs now, wetting her tunic and reducing her legs to frozen pillars of skin and bone. She shivered violently. Zale continued. "I suffered a hundred years, and I will not forget! I have done so much more for Narnia than you will ever do. I have bled and frozen and waited for ever so long, and then four children come and are set upon golden thrones in a faraway hall, crowned as rulers. How do you claim to know this land? How, when you have been here scarcely four years?"
"Aslan chose our tasks for us. Challenge us, and you challenge him," said Susan. The waves lapped at Lucy's waist, pushing against the cordial on her belt.
"Aslan! Do not speak to me of the fool. He has deserted us too many times. Now, Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, draw your weapons and fight me unless you are all words and no swords," Zale snarled. She lifted her scepter high and swung it in a tight arc, striking a point in the water, and suddenly the room was like the sea in the storm, white-capped waves leaping up at them and spraying them with freezing droplets.
"Lucy, Susan," said Peter quietly as he lifted his sword, "Somewhere in this room is the thing we need to destroy. Stay back, don't fight her, find it and get rid of it. Ed and I will hold her off."
"But…" began Susan, but he cut her off. The waves surged up at Lucy's stomach.
"Go!" he commanded, shared a brief glance with Edmund, then both of them charged. Zale reached down into the water and withdrew a long, thin sword. Unlike them she seemed entirely unaffected by the flood; on the contrary she seemed even more comfortable in it than she had on land, and as she brought her sword slashing towards the two brothers Lucy felt a surge of fear for them. But then Susan was hurriedly wading forward, looking up and around and all over the room for anything that could be what they were looking for. Lucy, too, began to look, though it took all she had not to look back at the battle when the first sound of steel on steel rang above the crashing waves.
But the water kept rising, and Lucy realized that if they didn't find it in time, no matter how Zale fought, they would all be dead.
