A/N: I realized it's been a while since I wrote an author's note, so hello! I literally cannot express how grateful I am to everyone reading this story, whether you've reviewed on FFN, commented on Wattpad, or just sent me a DM on insta, you all mean the world to me and I think about you all the time!
Also reminder to those not following me on Instagram, I have a trailer for this fic (and lots of edits that other people have made that are absolutely amazing) saved in my Untamed highlight, so check that out at tricia_pevensie if you want!
I can't believe we're already on chapter 12 of 14, that seems insane (and yes the next books will be very much longer so don't worry haha), I'm just so grateful and happy to be able to share this story with you! Thank you so much again for all your amazing support, you're amazing and I love you and I can't wait to walk with you through all the rest of the saga!
xXx
CHAPTER TWELVE: BIRTHRIGHT
Tirian's eyes snapped up to Mal in surprise, her face set hard with determination, icy fire in her dark gaze. "What? Are you sure?"
"This is my home, too."
"And mine," said Shadoht.
Gareth looked at his wife, and she looked steadily back.
"But even with archers," said another lord almost as quickly, "We are still painfully under-prepared, we can use none of the strategies or formations planned for the How."
A few other lords and knights chimed in, but Bran silenced them with the flick of sharp eyes. "We have more of a chance now than we did five minutes ago. If any of you have suggestions I'm sure we would all be welcoming."
Some men murmured amongst themselves, but it was Gareth who Tirian looked to.
"What do you think?"
The others fell silent, and Gareth glanced around before looking back to Tirian, gears turning behind his brown eyes, the true strategist in him, set free at last.
"We cannot hope to fight from the ground. The girl is right, we are not their equals, we cannot face their weapons or their size. Our goal must be to distract or occupy, never to fight head on. We will only be able to kill those felled by arrows, and flying beasts with their beaks and their talons."
"And if they cannot fell them all?" asked a knight.
"If I may," said a voice from somewhere on the ground, and Tirian looked down to see Cinder at his feet.
He extended an arm, and the Cat looked up with gleaming emerald eyes before propelling himself in one fluid motion up to Tirian's shoulder on a level with the rest of the company.
"If it is prey you want," he said, the rumble of his voice in Tirian's ear, the weight of Cat around his neck, "It is the smaller beasts you'll want to ask, those who have no choice but to fight this way. This may be a mad thought, but I have seen them do it— How if the diggers and tunnelers, Moles, Dwarfs, and the like, were to carve out warrens below the battlefield, not deep, but enough to weaken the ground beneath the weight of a giant?"
"Sink-holes, you mean," said Hosha, "And the rest of us could walk over without caving them in?"
"Yes, it might be a way to trip them up, at least, bring their throats within reach."
"Why, that's a real brainwave, Cin!"
From the glances exchanged between the rest of the lords, it was clear everyone could see it was a good idea.
Gareth sent another man off after the Moles and Dwarfs and Rabbits, and then hurriedly to the rest he said "We have little time, we should march soon, lest our plans be for naught. Those already armed, collect as many willing soldiers and archers as you can muster. You two," he looked to Hosha and Tirian, "Armory, now, and be quick."
They didn't have to be told twice.
Cinder leapt from Tirian's shoulders as he bolted after Hosha up the street, strains of conversation dying away behind them, two pairs of boots pounding stone until they burst through the door to the armory.
Others followed not too long after them, and the buzz of adrenaline washed away every other thought as Tirian tossed a light breastplate over his head.
"I don't even know why we're bothering to weigh ourselves down," said Hosha, though he dressed just as quickly, "If their weapons can just cut through it all anyway."
Tirian glanced over his shoulder. "You really are an idiot if you think a sword is the only way you can die in battle."
Hosha shot him a dry smile. "You know what I mean."
"Do I?" He almost grinned, but then another image flashed in his mind, that same curly head backlit in fading stained glass light, bewilderment and hurt in that same olive face.
Hosha caught his eyes.
A short silence passed between them, and Tirian almost spoke before Hosha interrupted.
"Don't embarrass us both with an apology."
Tirian took a breath, tried to speak again but stopped himself, and then sighed. "You're not mad?"
"Of course I'm mad. You're not allowed to leave me behind, ever, okay? You can even leave Narnia if you want to, but I'm coming with you."
Tirian breathed a laugh. "Alright, deal."
Hosha turned to buckling his breastplate, and Tirian moved to help him, threading leather straps through silver rings.
"What happened to you, anyway?" asked Hosha.
"Hm?"
"You're acting different."
"I am?"
Hosha pinned him with a dry look. "I'm not that stupid."
Tirian shot him a sheepish smile, but it fell as he finished buckling Hosha's breastplate and pulled on his own vambraces. "I… I don't know how to explain, really."
The midnight forest came back to him, the voice so small it was almost a thought, yet huge enough to shake him to his core.
"I… it's… I think… I met…" His eyes fell to the shield leaning against the wall at his feet, cherry-red lion emblazoned on gleaming silver, so bright he almost thought it would leap out at him.
Hosha followed his gaze, wide eyes snapping back up to Tirian a second later. "Wait, what? Seriously?"
He nodded, though he couldn't seem to come up with any of the right words no matter how he tried. "I'll… explain later."
Hosha raised his eyebrows. "You better."
And then they both remembered what they were supposed to be doing and hurriedly strapped on the last of their armor before running back out into the courtyard, now much weighed down, and Tirian's heart pounded at the thought of what came next.
Before he could look for anyone else, however, his eyes landed on Jewel.
He stopped.
Hosha ran on a few paces before glancing back, looked between them, and turned away to go to his father.
Of course he should have known Jewel would be fighting too, but it had not yet crossed his mind, and now his stomach churned at the sight of the delicate creature as it closed the distance between them.
Tirian spoke first.
"Are you sure about this?"
It wasn't what he'd meant to say, but the question hung heavy in his chest, an echo of the Unicorn's own words under the stable peak.
"Are you sure you should be going tomorrow?"
"What? You think I shouldn't?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well it kind of sounds like you're saying that."
And Tirian realized in a thunderclap of understanding just what Jewel must have felt all this time.
His own Jewel, the one who'd coaxed him onto his back that night in the forest when his own terrifying dark blood slicked his hands and the world spun beneath him. The one whose gentle rumble had guided him, panicked now in his memory, but steady, always steady, even when Tirian's own mind strayed into the blur and the pain, an all but forgotten nightmare for which not everyone had the luxury of having only been partially conscious.
"What would have happened if we didn't get back in time?"
He knew, now. He had seen the look in Gareth's eyes. He knew what it looked like when you failed.
Jewel met his gaze with glossy black eyes, all too deep, all too understanding. And at last he answered. "Our fathers rode together into battle. I would rather die by your side than live by any other."
A lump surged into Tirian's throat.
Jewel lowered his nose to brush Tirian's forehead, and Tirian pressed their faces together, eyes burning, moving to stroke the Unicorn's neck the way no one else would ever dare to and pressing a kiss to his velvety jaw, breathing his warm woody scent.
No words passed between them, but Tirian felt a small piece of the world had been set right.
"Tirian!" barked Gareth, and they both turned as a bird's cry pierced the air to spot three Griffins circling overhead, wheeling lower and lower until they alighted in the middle of the courtyard.
"My Lord," the largest beast gasped, addressing Gareth at once, and Tirian and Jewel moved closer to hear. "The giants, they approach."
"We go to meet them now," said Gareth. "Are they moving this direction?"
"Yes," said the Griffin, wings still out to its sides, nearly the height of a man with golden brown plumage ruffled from the wind. "They march from Shuddering Wood."
"They will be in the valley soon," said Shadoht, standing just at Gareth's shoulder with a quiver of black-fletched arrows strapped to her back. Tirian almost hadn't recognized the woman he could so easily have called mother, dark hair gathered over one shoulder, the gentleness in her figure turned dangerous as wild moonlight.
"Then let us meet them," said Tirian.
Gareth nodded and the last of the knights set in motion, beasts already pouring out through the gates, and the Griffins burst up into the air in a flurry of feathers, swooping over the wall to follow.
He spotted Mal and Elise mounting up onto horses behind the knights who would take them where they needed to go, light leather armor giving much needed bulk to Elise's skeletal frame, and he caught Mal's eye for a second as she glanced back, a steely glint in her gaze.
Fire ignited afresh in his chest.
"After you," said Gareth. "Your Majesty."
Tirian glanced at him, then at Hosha, and finally turned to Jewel, flung himself astride the Unicorn's creamy back and charged out through the gates.
Clear morning air whipped his face as they breezed past men and beasts, pounding over the wide stone bridge and into the valley at a gallop as if they'd done it a thousand times before, leaving the walls of Cair Paravel behind.
Rolling green hills gave way to wide plains until they crested the last rise and slowed to a halt in sight of the forest, a valley basin opening before them flanked by two small jagged hills scattered with trees like a beast of earth rising, jaws wide to swallow the valley up.
Hosha and Gareth pulled up on either side of him, the other riders jingling up to flank them as the army flooded in behind.
It would almost have been a perfect view, save for the unnatural waver of treetops rippling through the nearest part of the forest, sunlight catching on metal.
Horses thundered past down into the valley, carrying archers toward the hills to join those already snaking across the valley.
"They have poison?" asked Tirian.
"Yes," said Gareth, his hair whipping in a coastal gale, "We dug up all we could find, though I do not know how long it will last. They must not waste it. They must be good."
Tirian watched them, wondering which speck was Mal as the throng disappeared up into the trees and the riders charged back to join formation.
"They will be."
Hosha's hair lashed into his face as their eyes locked, and the low blast of a giantish battle horn sent a thrill through Tirian's veins as if the very sky were shaking with it.
"We catch them between the hills and keep them there," said Gareth. "We cannot let them through to the city."
Tirian threaded his hand subconsciously through Jewel's mane, the glint of armor now forming giant figures on the horizon, dwarfing the trees behind them.
"It's the whole army," murmured Hosha.
And it must have been, nearly a hundred giants, maybe more, larger than he even remembered, coming nearly up to the height of the hills themselves.
"Are you leading?" asked Gareth, and Tirian snapped up to look at him.
"What? Me?"
Gareth glanced over his shoulder and Tirian followed his gaze, heart jumping at the sight of more Narnians flooding the plain behind him than he had ever seen in his life. The whole city, centaurs and fauns and animals of every shape and size, men in armor, the tall spirits of wood men and wood women. They were not all warriors. But they would all fight.
"Narnia could use a King."
And something awoke inside Tirian, a swelling in his chest so suffocating he thought he might burst for the love of those creatures, following him, looking to him. His Narnians.
All at once he understood everything his father had ever said about kingship. Suddenly he knew he would die a thousand deaths for each and every one of them.
And then a chorus of tiny voices chirped from up ahead and he spun to see a dozen Mice and Moles and Rabbits scurrying up the hill, bounding right up to Jewel's hooves.
"The holes have been dug, Sire!" squeaked the chief mouse, whiskers quivering, tiny pink hands clutching the hilt of its needle-sharp sword. "Not too many as we had little time, but you can lead them around the north side."
"Thank you," said Tirian breathlessly, "Now off, be safe."
"But we want to follow you, Sire!"
His heart clenched at the simplicity of the words, gazing down at their shining eyes and snuffly noses, and he would have knelt to kiss them in a second if he could have, so earnest were their little faces that his eyes stung all over again. "And what of the dwarfs?"
"They've gone up to join the archers!" piped one of the Rabbits.
Tirian smiled down at it. "Well, then, go tell the others where they should lead these great brutes."
"Yes, your Majesty!" they cried and scampered off, and Tirian felt almost as if his heart ran away with them.
Hosha met his gaze when he looked back up, nodding to an unspoken question, one he hadn't even formed yet. "I follow you."
Tirian took a deep, shuddering breath, the earth trembling with a sea of distant armored footsteps, the cloudless robin's-egg sky shining clear over rolling green, and he drew his sword.
The ring of answering metal spread up and down the Narnian ranks.
"Signal the archers when we are almost among them," said Gareth through the rasping battle-song.
He thought of his father, of the days he'd spent daydreaming of battles, daydreaming of the good King Erlian leading his people to victory on a Unicorn's back.
He'd never imagined the noise, the deep rumble of the earth, the beautiful terror in the battle cries of giants, the sun beating down on his shoulders as the enemy marched ever closer to the hills in which he knew Mal and Elise and Shadoht hid. He'd never imagined the quiver of Jewel's flank beneath him, the pressure in his lungs like the whole company was holding its breath in unison.
"Now," he breathed, and Jewel bolted, jarring soft soil as he surged down the hill and the thunder of a thousand hooves followed behind.
The breath fled Tirian's lungs.
Adrenaline rushed through his veins, washing away every thought but one singular focus, and he raised his sword to the sky.
Giants loomed like uncanny towers between two hills, rushing closer, the space between them shrinking rapidly. And then he swung his sword forward, and a volley of arrows erupted above him.
For a moment the sky was thick with them, frozen in time, and then the blast of otherworldly cries drowned out the thunder of hooves as giants jerked to shield their faces and Jewel plunged in among them, skidding around an armored boot and taking off again.
Tirian held hard with his knees as they bolted back out into the open, and he didn't have to glance back to know they'd done their work, the tremor of footsteps following at once as Narnians surged in around them.
Creatures peeled off in every direction, giants slashing almost aimlessly, metal slamming into earth, their perfect formation disrupted in only a few moments of chaos.
And then the boom of a giant falling to its knees drew a surge of Narnians so quickly it lasted not two seconds after hitting the ground.
They dodged and wheeled and led the brutes around each other, aiming not for the standing but for the fallen, and on every side Narnians plunged their swords and spears and horns into the throats and eyes and heads of those whose helmets came off.
The plan was working.
Tirian had no time to see who was doing what, only to slash wherever he caught an opening while streams of Narnians led the enemy into the wide valley.
To his right a giant stumbled, sinking suddenly into the earth and reeling back, and his mind flew to the Moles and the Dwarfs. They'd done their work, too.
Jewel wheeled hard just in time to miss the knee of a crashing giant and Tirian barely held on, the rumble of the earth nearly pitching Jewel off his feet, but he never fell, and Tirian threw a knife from his belt without even looking back, hoping it would make purchase and distract long enough for someone else to finish the job.
Now the valley was full with those who'd come through the pass, battle raging in every direction, Birds and Griffins flying in the faces of those too far from the hills to shoot. And when he glanced back, his stomach lurched.
The ground they pounded over in their wild game of ducking and dodging was green, but back between the hills lay a swath of dark earth, bodies of glinting armor not quite hiding the rest of the carnage, what he could only assume had once been Narnians, crushed into the ground beyond recognition.
Arrows still flew, but now the giants were turning away from the hills, the distraction dead at their feet.
Jewel bore hard in a sharp arc back around toward them before Tirian could even speak, racing between legs and over slick black grass as others followed their lead, back toward the center of it all.
A knee buckled just behind them, crashing to the earth, and the fresh wave of Narnians dispatched it without slowing.
And then out of nowhere an axe swung down and Jewel reared hard, skidding to an instant halt, and Tirian lurched with the jolt into nothing but air for one heart-stopping second before the ground rose up and crashed into him, slamming the air from his lungs as stars burst in his vision.
For a moment everything blurred around him, and then a shadow loomed overhead and he rolled just in time to miss the impact of an axe into soft soil, the shiver of it rushing through his whole body.
He lurched to his knees, struggling to stand, but the world tilted and his muscles and lungs protested, reeling from the impact, armor dragging him down, sword just out of reach.
A flash of white streaked behind him, Unicorn catching the beast in the crook of its elbow just as it yanked the axe from the ground. It bellowed and reeled back, dropping the weapon again as Tirian scrambled for his sword, fingers slipping on the hilt, hand slick with blood from somewhere up his sleeve he couldn't see.
But the giant didn't fall, and it lunged for Tirian again in an instant, no weapon, it didn't need one.
He stepped back a pace and almost tripped over something's shattered ribcage half sticking up out of the mud, barely keeping his footing as the giant advanced over him.
But before he could react, before a single thought could flash through his fuzzy head, before he could even begin to scramble for a way to bring the towering monster down, an arrow struck it in the eye and it jerked away to clutch its face.
Tirian looked around in surprise.
He wasn't in between the hills where the arrows flew, but before he could spot the shooter the giant's knee buckled and he bolted as it fell, crashing to the ground, eyes rolling back in its skull as the poison worked.
Tirian doubled back and slashed at its throat, a spurt of dark blood drenching him as he yanked his sword out and stumbled away, heart hammering, breathing hard.
And then another giant turned, towering over the scene. But its eyes did not land on him. It was looking at the hills.
Tirian glanced back, up into the trees.
And then he saw, just as the giant did, the figure at the edge of the nearest cliff for one fleeting moment before it retreated, and the ground shook as the giant stepped after it, dripping sword in hand.
Mal.
