CHAPTER ELEVEN: SOMETHING WILDER
Gravity's intoxicating pull saturated every inch of Tirian's being, weighing down trembling limbs as stars danced in his vision and he slipped into what might have been a dream, save for the whisper of wind through invisible branches and the damp cold soaking into his back.
Not even one patch of moonlight broke the emptiness, the world utterly black when at last the lights bursting in his head subsided, and he stared into nothing for so long he couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed.
He could die here. He could die here and no one would know and nothing would matter, he could sink into the earth and never think again, let the darkness claim him, let it silence the noise in his chest.
But just as the thought flashed into his mind, he felt suddenly that he was not alone.
He bolted upright, head spinning, heart pounding, clutching damp leaves as the hilt of his sword dug into his stomach and a presence rushed around him so thick that he gasped.
But the night remained unchanged, no movement, no break in the darkness, no sound but his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, and the weight of some massive creature hanging over him, invisible, vibrating in his chest.
He glanced wildly around into inky blackness, chest heaving, adrenaline singing painfully through his veins.
Who's there, he wanted to ask, but the air caught in his throat.
And then his father's voice came up from the depths of his mind, like a memory called unbidden to the surface. My son.
Or, was it his father's voice?
He couldn't hear it so much as he felt it, but the words hung there all the same, rich and low and pervasive.
My son.
Warmth flooded his body just as if he'd crawled into his father's bed, candlelight flickering on marble walls, and his hand flew to his middle, as if expecting to find something there aside from his own flimsy tunic.
"Who are you," he breathed, not even a whisper, but he knew the answer the moment he asked.
He'd known it all his life, an image in the back of his mind, stories from his fathers' lips, figures carved in stone older than he could comprehend.
Now that it was here, he only knew that he did not know it nearly well enough.
What have you done, child.
The voice was so like his father's that for a moment he thought again it must be some distant memory, except for the terrible wildness to it, plaguing his mind as if breathed in a nightmare.
He drew a shaky breath, cold air raking his lungs.
"I—" His voice cracked in the darkness, too loud, too raw, too real. Only one thought crashed through his mind, but he couldn't say it, not here, not now, not to this thing. He's dead. He's dead and it's my fault.
His lungs constricted, stabbing ice through his chest.
But the question only lingered, unanswered, pressing. It was looking for something else.
What else could possibly matter? His father was dead.
What have you done?
Thunder rumbled again inside him, words flashing back to his head.
"What good does it do us now, huh? What good did it do my father?"
"I don't want your help!"
But even then, the question hung, unmoved, even as his stomach flipped over and his hands trembled in freezing cold, soaking wet undergrowth.
Energy swelled in his chest, choking it out of him. What have you done?
"I ran," he gasped, almost before the thought came fully into his mind, a confession torn as if it was a defense.
The tower.
That was what it wanted.
A flicker of guilt twisted in his gut, but it was just as quickly overtaken by angry frustration. Why did it matter if he ran? How could it possibly matter what he did now, after everything?
He shook his head, lungs swelling against the pounding force. "They don't need me." A breath into nothingness. Hollow. Empty.
"A King should never run from his duty," his father's voice came back now, and this time it really was a memory, just as clear as the day he'd spoken it over a tower window, so strong, so noble.
No.
Tirian wasn't a King. He wasn't his father.
But a thousand explanations died on his lips before he could utter them. I don't deserve to— I'm afraid to— I'm not—
Not one of them was good enough. Because he was the King. And he had run away.
The knowing silence cut like a knife. No admonishment came, no anger. Only gentle stillness, and he wished it would kill him.
Everything that had churned over and over in his head while he crashed through streams and brambles in the dark, everything he'd known with such certainty collapsed in the face of this thing.
But even now his mind would not go silent. He's dead. He's dead and it's my fault. He's dead and I killed him.
And at last he dared to ask, stomach twisting, terrified of the answer, yet unable to think of anything else, and feeling somehow that this thing knew:
"If I didn't beg— if I'd never gone— if it wasn't for me, would he still be…?"
We can never know what would have happened, the voice came at once, as if from his own thoughts. Was he making it up? Was that really the answer? How many times had he heard those same words in the parables? Why couldn't it be something else? Anything else?
"Please," he choked, desperation washing unbidden into his throat, eyes burning, heart throbbing, "Please just tell me, please, I have to know, I have to— if it's— if I'm— if he—"
Silent, steady warmth was his only answer, the same thought echoing, we can never know.
"But I HAVE to know!" he cried, and then doubled over with the wrench of a half-swallowed sob, heat surging, stinging, streaking down wind-bitten cheeks. He gasped, clutching at his clothes, at the damp grass.
Anger shattered into nothing but a horrible emptiness as another sob tore from his throat, like a strangled cry of pain, sharp and harsh and raw, voice catching and hitching with another desperate gasp, his forehead pressing into cold earth.
"I ca— can't, please—"
He choked, swallowed.
"I d-don't want anything else, I— I j-just—"
His fingers dug into the undergrowth, reeling from the force of another violent sob, voice twisting in pathetic anguish, lacing every breath, until at last the suffocating weight clawed its way up his throat, the heavy cloying weight in the depths of his being, twisted into clumsy words that could never capture the gravity of its desperation.
"I just want him back."
And then his sobs eclipsed any further attempt at speech as the presence surged around him and he clutched his own midsection, flooded with an undeniable ache, a pure saturation of being.
It understood, somehow. The invisible golden warmth felt everything, rolling with every wave of undiluted emptiness as if it were its own, as if it knew his pain even more deeply than he knew it himself.
And he heard, though it didn't say, I'm here.
He didn't deserve it. He was so painfully aware of how much he didn't deserve it. He was nothing, he was so wrong, he was so small and so wrong.
"I'm sorry," he sobbed, almost incoherently, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please." And he thought, though he didn't say, help me, save me, please.
He didn't know how long the grief racked his frame, driving sore muscles to trembling; he cried until he exhausted every drop of moisture in his body and left his eyes burning with its memory, until his stomach swam and his heart beat hollow and his shoulders shook from the exertion more than the tears, and it released him at last into a heap on the damp forest floor, breeze stinging his raw face, steady warmth still rumbling at his back, never moving, never wavering.
He breathed, shakily, cold air dragging its claws up and down his windpipe, and through his exhaustion came a distant clarity of thought, like a blanket of calm over ravaged flesh.
"I don't know who I am," he breathed, and he was too tired to feel the pang of it quite so deeply as he otherwise would have.
A twisted ghost at the back of his mind still said murderer, but even that was dulled now.
Prince Tirian, son of Erlian.
Only, he wasn't a Prince.
And his father was gone.
A leader. A free spirit. A rash fool. At least one of those was still true. But his spirit felt shackled to the earth, and he didn't know how to lead, he didn't know how to be a King.
"I'm not who he thought I was," he murmured, rasping into the darkness, voice still in danger of breaking.
All his life he'd built himself on his father's words, but perhaps he was never brave or bright or golden. Perhaps he was never really even like his mother. Perhaps Erlian had only ever wished to see her echoes in the one who had robbed him of her merely by existing.
That confidence, that surety in everything he was supposed to do, that feeling he'd trusted more than anything, it had only caused more harm, more pain. I'm not who I thought I was.
"He was wrong," he breathed, and it was only then that his chest tightened. His father was wrong. Hosha was wrong. "I can't… I can't be… I'm not him."
And then, out of the stillness, out of the whisper in the branches, out of the midnight chill, came a voice distinct from all of these.
You are who I mean you to be.
Tirian's eyes flew open.
The pale light of dawn shone beyond the treetops, his clothes soaking wet with dew.
For a split second he thought it had all been a dream, but the next moment he knew that couldn't be true. Something deep inside him knew with a certainty beyond doubt that the voice had been real, whether it was a dream or not, and his lungs swelled for the overwhelming rush of it.
He moved to sit up, but groaned a second later when all of his muscles protested in unison, and rolled more gingerly onto his side, pushing himself up to his knees despite the throb in his thighs.
He shook the leaves and twigs from his hair, eyes still raw and sore from crying, and looked around.
The ravine he'd fallen down in the night was really more of a little hollow, the canopy overhead shielding it from the sky, though he knew by the light that the sun was just about to rise.
And then his eyes fell on a dip in the soft earth just beside where he'd been laying, undergrowth crushed into the mud in the distinct shape of a huge paw print.
He sucked in a sharp breath and glanced around, but the forest stood silent and unchanged.
He'd never seen a Lion. He'd never even seen a dumb lion, though he knew they still existed in the western wilds. But no Cat alive in Narnia was big enough to leave that mark, deep and heavy and huge, at least three times the size of his own hand when he reached out, hesitantly, as if afraid it would disappear, to press his palm into the center of it.
Warmth ignited afresh in his core, washing through his being with such aching relief that he almost doubled over.
His eyes burned with the distant ghost of tears, and he let out a shuddering breath.
He didn't know how to lead. He didn't know how to be a King. He wasn't his father. He was so small, and so wrong.
But he was not alone.
It might have been his imagination, but he almost thought the patch of earth was still warm.
Before he had any more time to think about this, however, a distant noise caught his ears, almost skirting his perception, and he perked up to listen.
For a few moments nothing happened.
Then he realized, with a little start, that there was no forest noise. The wild world had gone silent.
And just barely audible in the stillness was the heavy timbre of otherworldly voices.
Giants.
His blood ran cold. His mind raced. He couldn't be more than a few miles from the Cair, how were there giants so close already?
He scrambled to his feet and turned in the direction they had to be coming from, their deep, distant bugle igniting a fire in his chest that moved his hand unknowing to his sword hilt.
His father's pale and still form flashed back into his mind and his heart leapt in a white flash of rage.
But then another sensation crept in just before he could move, rooting him to the spot with a whisper; a presence, or the ghost of a presence. He squeezed his eyes shut, took a deep breath, let it out.
His heart hammered against his ribcage, begging, tugging for action, and he gripped the hilt of his sword, the power of the steel flooding into his arm. But still, in the depths, a voice that did not belong to him, too soft to hear, but stirring, a cool current lapping at the blaze.
Tirian.
And then his mind came back to him.
Cair Paravel.
He bolted, clambered up out of the hollow, chipping his nails on roots and crashing through the underbrush, stumbling, running in spite of the pounding in his legs, back through the tangling brambles he'd torn through in the night with no more grace, and out into the pale dawn.
Time may have vanished in the dark, but now precious seconds slipped by with every step, urgency driving him on past the edge of his limits.
The sun was up and shining straight in his eyes when at last the towers of the Cair rose up ahead of him and he bolted for the west gate, catching the glint of people already assembled there.
Gareth's army.
"Wait!" he called, and crashed in through the archway just as Gareth strode out of the ranks and the whole crowd turned to look at him, surprise flashing over the lord's face before another voice shouted from across the courtyard.
"Tir!"
Hosha charged through the assembled men and nearly toppled Tirian as he grabbed his shoulders.
"Oh, Lion's mane, Tir," he gasped, "Don't make me report you missing ever again, I almost died of— hey, what happened to you?" His tone changed the moment he really looked at Tirian, cheeks flushed and eyes wide, scanning him up and down.
"Excuse me?" snapped Gareth, in the way that told Tirian he was really alarmed, "You didn't report him missing."
"I was just about to! Why do you think I came out here? By the time I got the King's door unlocked you were already—"
"You picked the lock to the King's—?"
Hosha spun on the lord before he could finish. "I really don't think that's what's important right now, Father."
Gareth set his jaw hard, and Hosha turned back to Tirian, still clutching both arms as if he were in danger of dashing off again at any second.
"What did you think you were doing, freaking me out like that? If you're running away you can at least take me with you!"
Before he could stop himself, before he even knew what he was doing, Tirian laughed. A real, honest laugh, breaking sharp in the morning air, and he realized it was the first time he'd laughed since the centaurs brought his father's stretcher into the courtyard.
He smiled at Hosha, at his friend's perplexed countenance, fondness flooding his chest before Gareth cut in for a final time.
"Tirian, what on earth have you done?"
Reality and urgency crashed back over him.
"I'm sorry," he said quickly, glancing between them, "Really, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking, not that that's an excuse, I know, but— the giants are in Shuddering Wood."
"What?" Gareth and Hosha snapped at once in exactly the same tone.
"It's true, I heard them!"
Gareth glanced around at his men, eyes flashing as his mind raced at the new information. "How would you— why were you—" But those questions didn't matter right now. "Are you sure?"
Tirian nodded emphatically.
Gareth ran a hand through his hair.
"But my lord," said another soldier, "If they're already past the How, what of our other troops?"
Gareth shook his head, voice low. "We have no time to call for reinforcements."
"What will we do, then?" asked Hosha.
For a moment Gareth didn't answer. Then he looked at Tirian. "How close?"
"Two hours' run, at least. Though when I looked back over the trees I think I saw smoke. Not a forest fire, more like a campfire. They may not have been moving when I left, but undoubtedly they will be soon."
Gareth tightened his jaw, and Hosha swallowed. None of them mentioned what might have been part of that campfire.
"Our force will be less than half what it was last time," said Gareth, "Most of our troops came from Beruna and Beaversdam. It will take every able-bodied creature in the city if we want to meet them here."
Hosha's head snapped up. "You mean—"
Gareth looked at him and took a deep breath, eyes hardening as if he wanted to take it back, but at last he breathed out. "Yes, you too. I can hardly turn away any hand capable of grasping a sword."
Hosha sucked in a sharp breath and looked at Tirian.
"But we have no plan," said Gareth, "And very little time to make one."
Tirian only blinked, Hosha's shining eyes dancing before him. It hadn't even crossed his mind that he might be part of the army, he'd only been concerned with getting back in time to warn Gareth. Now panic crept into his chest, a weight of doubt.
You're not ready, his father's voice echoed.
And he wasn't ready, he knew that now. He didn't know anything about battles, about war, this wasn't a story or a make believe adventure he could play on the Moors that always ended with enemies defeated.
He wished for the hundredth time that his father were here instead of him, he would have known what to do, he always did.
Then another voice rose, as if out of a dream, less than a whisper, yet still—
You are who I mean you to be.
His lungs swelled. It was almost too beautiful to believe, but the calm that came over him afforded a moment of clear thought.
Maybe he didn't need to know all those things.
"Call a council," he said suddenly, "Out here, don't bother with the formalities, get Bran, and—" His eyes snapped to Hosha. "Elise."
"What?"
"Hurry up, go!" He pried Hosha's hands from his shoulders and pushed him toward the street.
The boy stammered silently for a few seconds before the order sank in and he spun to obey, dashing across the courtyard and into the city.
Gareth watched Tirian, almost as if sizing him up for a moment before turning to send someone after the other lords, and then leading him through the men to a wide stone awning big enough for a group to gather under, out of the beating sun.
"Are you sure about bringing the girl into this?" he murmured when they stepped into the shade, slightly away from the others. "She's faced more than enough already."
Tirian nodded, turning to face him, though really he wasn't sure at all. "She deserves to be here."
Gareth pursed his lips. "I really ought to have words with you, lad, running off in the middle of all this. What would your—"
What would your father say?
"I know," said Tirian before he had to finish, "I know, I'm sorry, if there was anything I could say for myself I would, but… I just…" He sighed, looked up into Gareth's ever-sturdy face, into the brown eyes already looking steadily back at him, beard accentuating a square jaw, streaks of silver trailing through fading hair.
Tirian worked hard not to avert his eyes as his words from yesterday came flying back to him and heat rushed into his face. "I'm sorry for— all that, too. I shouldn't have… I… shouldn't have challenged you like that, I know my rashness is responsible for all this, I just—"
"What, boy?" Genuine surprise laced Gareth's tone, the sternness in his eyes breaking for a moment.
"I mean… what Jewel said. If we hadn't gone out that first night—"
"No," said the lord with a sharp shake of the head, "You are responsible for nothing. A great number of headaches, perhaps, but not this, Tirian."
Tirian blinked, brows knitting slightly.
"If anyone could be responsible it is I, who let your father so easily from my sight in battle, and furthermore failed to return in time to save him." The words were rigid and matter-of-fact, but Tirian had never heard Gareth take such a trembling breath, never heard him claim to fail at anything, certainly not in battle, and there was a pain behind his eyes that almost scared him.
"What? No, Gareth, you can't— that's not your fault." The fragile unbelief in the man's eyes jolted through his own chest, fresh and sharp. "My father loved you more than anything, he would hate to hear you say—" He swallowed and shook his head, none of the right words coming to mind, no way to say what he really meant. "You did all you could."
And silently, though he hardly knew he'd needed to say it, I forgive you.
For a moment it was just the two of them, proud lord and wild boy, neither proud nor wild now, cracks splitting once-unbreakable marble to the depths of an emptiness only they understood. For a moment it was not a King whose absence ached hollow between them, but only a father, a best friend.
Gareth pulled Tirian into his arms and he gasped against the curve of cool steel, clutching the lord's armored waist on reflex, cheek pressed into his shoulder-guard.
Tears of unexpected relief rushed to his eyes and he blinked them rapidly back, Gareth's strong hands clutching him tight for several moments before at last he let go and swallowed, regaining composure.
Tirian let out a shaky breath.
"Well," said Gareth with a small, forced smile, "It would seem your rashness has paid off, for once."
Tirian's lips twitched into the ghost of a grin.
A few minutes later Hosha came running back into the courtyard, Elise trailing behind him; and behind her, to Tirian's surprise, came Mal and Shadoht, though he really ought not to have been surprised at all.
"What is this about running away?" gasped Mal the second she reached him, "Do you have any idea how dangerous— oh, you stupid boy, you don't think about anything, do you? What if you'd been killed? And your clothes, Tirian—"
He couldn't get a word in edgewise, and simply resigned himself to be fussed over, Mal's hands in his unbrushed hair and tugging on his mud-stained tunic (which he now realized really was rather a mess) until at last he caught her hands up in his own.
"Alright, I know, okay? I don't think the giants will care whether I've had a bath."
"Well I—"
But at that moment Bran came jogging up and her argument was cut short as the last of the necessary lords crowded under the awning.
Gareth quickly explained everything Tirian had told him, Elise's eyes flashing to him at the mention of giants, Mal's hands tightening on his arm.
"Between here and the Shuddering Wood?" asked Bran sharply. "But we have no fortresses in that path, they will hit the coast."
"What are our defenses?" asked Tirian.
Bran shook his head. "We cannot let them reach the city. They will level it. If their blades can pierce iron, they can rend stone. We have no other strongholds."
Tirian looked to Gareth for answers, but it was Shadoht who spoke, her tone even and calm.
"What of the western plains? There is a place between two hills, not far from here, we could hide a few hundred archers and catch them in the valley if they come this way out of the forest."
Everyone looked at her, and Gareth nodded slowly. "Archers have been our best hope, but most were coming from the west. It is fauns and the like who always have the best aim, and we have precious few of them here."
"Even besides that," said another lord, "What good have arrows done us so far? We can hit their faces, yes, but how often do they fall? Our arrows are pins and needles to them."
But then a new voice cut in, and Tirian turned in surprise when he realized it was Elise.
"I think…" she started, and then paused when all eyes turned to her, orange curls glinting at the edge of the sunlight, hovering close to Hosha and looking particularly small even though the soft lines had begun to come back to her bony shoulders. "I mean— I don't know much—" She glanced at Tirian.
He nodded her on, eyes fixed in attention.
"It's just… you're thinking like warriors. These demons… they're not our equals, no village has ever withstood them. We are their prey. And I know more about hunting than I know about battle, but in the wild, small prey cannot defend itself by force. They must use other methods, like camouflage, or venom."
"Venom," echoed Hosha.
"Poison," said Tirian, and looked at Gareth. "Do we have poisoned arrows?"
"We— I don't— we haven't used them since the last war, Narnia rarely deals in poison, but now…" He glanced at a man nearby. "Rhys, go to the apothecary, see what you can find."
Rhys nodded at once and bolted away into the city.
Then another thought struck Tirian. I know more about hunting than I know about battle.
"Oh!" He spun to Gareth again. "Archers!"
"What of them?" asked Bran.
"You said we don't have many here—and we may not have many fauns—but the best trick shot archers I know are women."
Gareth raised his eyebrows.
"They're not warriors, but they can shoot. If it's archers you need— then maybe— I mean, if they want—"
Elise stepped forward before he finished. "Please." Her tone was desperate, almost breathless. "If you give me a bow, I will fight."
Gareth pursed his lips and for a moment Tirian was afraid he would say no. But after several long moments of silence, he relinquished with a nod.
Tirian's eyes snapped to Elise with a bolt of understanding, blue into grey, and he squeezed her shoulder. "You will avenge your family."
She bit the inside of her lip and gratitude welled up in her eyes.
It was Mal who stepped up next.
"I'll go, too."
