They refilled their water bottles at the pool, and Aravis led the way down a sprawling maze of open rooms and passages to the south, down at last into a bare courtyard which lay wide open to the southern end of the arena.
"Should be elevated enough to see a fire from a good long distance," she said. "And we'll have time to see them coming, if they do."
"When they do," said Edmund, trailing his fingers along the edge of a fallen pillar. A hint of color tinged his once pale skin, sun-kissed and slightly rosy after days of exposure, and he turned to survey the area.
Crumbling heaps of rubble provided cover around the outskirts of the main courtyard, three different paths cutting back up through high walls to the north.
"Alright, then," said Caspian when no objection came, and they all set about collecting as much kindling as they could carry back from the scattered gardens around the higher levels of the vast castle ruin.
"At least it's dry," panted Lucy as she lugged an armful of branches into the middle of the courtyard and tossed them down on top of the towering pile nearly an hour later.
"Won't have any trouble lighting this," agreed Aravis. "Hasn't rained in a week."
"It rained?" asked Caspian.
"You missed that too, huh?"
Edmund dropped his own branches onto the heap and scratched his head, pulling the sweaty hair out of his face. "Yeah. Missed that too."
Caspian pulled out the larger pieces to build the base of a real bonfire, and Edmund went back after more wood in case they would need to keep it burning overnight. Lucy and Aravis took the long trek back up to the tower, retrieving the weapons they hadn't carried down the first time, and leaving the backpack with everything but the food they would eat that night, stashed well out of the way so that nobody else could stumble over it by accident.
Lucy paused to brush her hair before they went back down, grinning at Aravis. "Gotta look pretty for the careers, right?"
The girl smirked, and by noon they'd rejoined the boys in the southern courtyard, Lucy with her bow and quiver full of arrows, Aravis with her makeshift spear.
"You don't seriously think that's going to do anything?" scoffed Edmund with one glance at the spear.
"I don't know, I could always practice on you again."
He pursed his lips, and she twirled it in one hand.
"Not all of us have rich sponsors to give us whatever we want."
"Sounds like a you problem," said Edmund.
"Are we ready?" asked Caspian, the bonfire set up behind him, unlit.
Edmund motioned for him to do the honors, and Caspian knelt with his lighter to start it from the bottom, dark flame smoking black and climbing up from branch to branch as they all stepped back to watch it catch.
"Yep," said Edmund after a few minutes of ash billowing into the clear blue sky. "Nobody's missing that."
They had nothing left to do but wait.
The sun peaked over the barren wasteland, and they sheltered in the shadow of one of the fallen pillars.
Edmund flipped a knife idly to pass the time. "How did they look when you last saw them?"
Aravis shrugged, etching lazy patterns into the stone with the tip of her spear. "Ragged. Not too beat up, just… messy, I guess. Didn't have much on them. I think Susan cut her hair, and the boys looked really dirty. All the boys except Rabadash, anyway."
"What about Rabadash?" asked Caspian.
"Unscathed. Probably took one look at that dragon and booked it before anyone else even knew what was happening. Real noble, that one." She sighed. "Us, on the other hand, he was more than happy to chase down."
Lucy glanced up. "Rabadash was the one who killed…?"
Aravis nodded. "We tried to climb out the north cliff. Not ideal, but it's not like we had much of a choice. Las slipped, and he pounced in a second. I was too high up to help. I just remember her screaming. Honestly, I don't even know which of them actually killed her. She screamed for so long, the others came over, and I had to get out of sight above the trees. But I saw her face, for a second. What was left of it. He enjoyed that." She clenched her jaw, and swallowed. "It might have been anyone who put her out of her misery. But I want him. I want him to feel that, too."
Edmund flipped his knife again, and Lucy glanced at him, his expression stony. But before she could say anything, a familiar ringing drifted down from above, and they all looked up.
Caspian stood, stepping out from their shade and reaching up to catch a long, flat object out of the air, parachute fluttering down around his arm.
He stared at it for several moments, and then turned to Aravis, holding it out to her: A sheathed sword in a silver belt, engraved with the number 11 on its hilt.
"For you."
Edmund stood nearly as quickly as she did, stepping around to get a better look as Aravis took it, almost unbelieving, from Caspian's hands.
Tentatively, she pulled the blade from its sheath, short and broad and gleaming sharp in the sunlight, and spun it in her hand with graceful familiarity, smiling faintly to herself. Her eyes shone as she gazed up and down the blade.
"What were you saying about sponsors?" asked Lucy, and Aravis glanced up at her.
For the very first time, she hesitated. "You know… I couldn't see what all the fuss was about, back in the Capitol… but there's something really strange about you, Eight."
Lucy grinned. "I don't even mean to be right all the time, it just happens."
Caspian scoffed a laugh and shot her a smile as they retreated back into their shade and Aravis turned the blade over repeatedly in her hands.
"We must be on the right track," said Edmund. "They wouldn't buy something like that for no reason."
And by the time Caspian's watch read 5PM, he was proven correct yet again.
"There," said Aravis, pointing from her perch atop one of the broken walls, and Edmund stood to get a better look, squinting as Lucy blinked out into the blazing expanse, toward the tiny dark spot far away in the valley.
"Does that look like five people to you?" asked Edmund.
"Guess we'll find out. But it's gotta be them. Nobody else is even out there."
They checked again and again throughout the afternoon, feeding the fire at intervals, until the shadows grew long and dark around them and the figures vanished in amongst the ruins, the sun slipping steadily down into the western horizon.
"We should split up," said Aravis. "Draw them off to both sides so they can't all work together."
"I'm not going with you," said Edmund.
"I will," said Lucy, and Caspian glanced at her. "I mean, I've got my bow, and Ed can throw even better. We could hit them from either side, that way."
Edmund nodded, and Aravis shrugged, but Caspian's dark eyes flickered with the palest hint of uncertainty, and the immediate reality of their plan struck Lucy like a slap of ice water.
The careers had breached the castle walls.
They were really here.
This was really happening.
"Are you sure?" murmured Caspian, and her stomach flipped, but she forced a nod.
"It's my plan, I can do it."
He breathed a low sigh, and silently grasped her hand; the boy whose nightmares had lived in an arena longer than she'd dreamed of lions, the boy who'd played this scene a thousand times in the darkest corners of his mind, tested the odds, watched them break.
"We can do it," she breathed in amendment.
Smoke billowed as Edmund added two final logs to the fire, russet dusk creeping over the hazy sky.
And at last, the echo of laughter bounced distantly off the stone maze.
"Let's move," said Aravis.
Lucy swallowed and tightened her fingers around Caspian's for a second, suddenly desperate to hold on, as if she were a child again, hiding from bullies in a broom closet.
"If you get overpowered," he murmured quickly, "just run, don't try to be a hero. I mean… You know what I mean."
She forced a small smile, let go, and gripped her bow instead. "You too."
He almost looked like he wanted to say something else, but after a moment of hesitation he only returned the smile, reluctantly turning to follow Edmund to the western end of the courtyard, keeping low and slipping over the wall into the shadows.
Lucy followed Aravis around the northeastern corner, behind a massive fallen pillar and the crumbling remains of a low wall, outside the firelight's reach.
Lucy's stomach churned, the crackle of the fire flooding her ears, and beside her, Aravis crouched perfectly still; a statue of bridled strength; sharp silhouette familiar yet foreign at the same time.
The voices came nearer, harsh laughter ringing again from the south corridor.
"Bloody bold of them to make so much noise out here," hissed Aravis.
"Well," breathed Lucy, "I suppose they can, they're the predators."
Aravis looked at her in the near-dark, the whites of her eyes glinting in flickering sparks. "Not for much longer."
She nodded to Lucy's bow, and with a deep breath, Lucy strung an arrow as the voices came up around the corner toward the courtyard.
"You know," barked one, "I'm getting tired of your excuses, we're not here to play."
"I never said we were," replied Peter's unmistakeable honey-rich voice. "I said it's probably a trap."
"I know it's a trap, you just don't want to get your hands dirty."
"More for the rest of us," sneered a third voice, and Aravis stiffened.
Lucy didn't need to ask whether it was Rabadash. And just as he spoke, three figures strode into the firelight at the southern edge of the courtyard, swords drawn and shining.
The sky had not yet fully darkened, its ominous maroon glow settling on their hair and skin as the fire cast stark shadows over their most distinctive features.
Lucy's fingers ghosted the feathers of her arrow as she nocked it into place and pulled it back, gazing down the shaft at their visitors, steadying her aim in spite of the pounding in her chest.
"Bet they got scared and ran," said the one she now identified visually as Rabadash; squarish jawline, wavy black hair glinting orange as he strode along the wall, glancing in Lucy's direction, though the blaze stood between them, dazzling his eyes.
"I get Rabadash," Aravis' voice echoed back from yesterday, and Lucy shifted her arrow tip toward the other two, lingering near the far gateway. For a moment she fixed on Peter, but then shifted to the boy beside him. Rhince, the classic District Four powerhouse, sun-bleached brown hair and heavily tanned skin, broad chest, sturdy build.
And with a twang, she let the arrow fly.
Rhince barked a sharp cry and dropped his sword, grabbing his shoulder and stumbling back under the gate as the other two leapt into the shadows before Lucy could string another arrow.
Rabadash bolted for the near side of the fire as Peter leapt to the far side, closer to Edmund and Caspian's hiding spot, vanishing into the darkness.
Rhince's choked curses rang in Lucy's ears, the connection between her actions and his pain barely registering as Aravis shoved off from the stone and darted around the fallen pillar separating them from Rabadash.
Lucy followed without thinking, creeping swiftly as she nocked another arrow and followed the girl away from the fire.
But there were supposed to be five of them.
Where had the others gone? Susan and Glozelle?
Lucy glanced over her shoulder, but the bulk of the gargantuan pillar blocked even the fire from view, save for the flurry of sparks bursting up against the sky, both District One tributes still unaccounted for.
"Aravis," she breathed, slowing before they came around the other side of the pillar, but the girl shook her head.
"Just cover me," she hissed, and drew her sword with the very faintest rasp of metal in the darkness.
Before either of them could move, a small avalanche of rocks clattered a few yards to their left and both of their heads snapped up as a figure dropped down from a wall even deeper into the shadows.
A boy.
Glozelle.
His eyes locked onto them and his sword flashed into his hand, two quick strides carrying him within reach as Aravis swung up to deflect a blow, the clash of metal ringing through the air.
Lucy jumped back, pulled her arrow tight against her cheek and shot.
It struck with a dense chunk in Glozelle's chest and he stumbled back a step.
But the arrowhead still glinted, visible, buried less than an inch into his jacket, and he reached up with a grunt to wrench it out.
Aravis grabbed Lucy's wrist and yanked her back, darting down a massive stone corridor before she could even process what had just happened.
Lucy tripped over her own feet to follow the girl into the ruin as another set of footsteps and a shout came behind them, Rabadash joining Glozelle in pursuit.
"Body armor," spat Aravis, ducking up a northern passage and veering sharply around a corner, just as a clash of metal rang distantly from the direction of the courtyard and Lucy's mind flew back to Caspian.
"What— how did they get—"
"You're not the only one who's got a way with sponsors," hissed the girl, and yanked Lucy down another wide, dark lane under a high wall in full shadow.
They slammed back against the wall and stopped for a moment, breaths filling the corridor, listening as two pairs of heavy footsteps pounded past without turning.
Their pursuers had missed them.
Their pursuers had body armor.
This wasn't part of the plan.
"Aim for the face this time," said Aravis, and ducked out the other end of the passage, creeping along the low wall parallel to the careers' path, footsteps echoing up ahead.
Lucy followed and strung another arrow, but just as she caught up, a wild scream pierced the night air.
Aravis pulled up short and wheeled around, pinning Lucy with a dark flash of surprise as she skidded and almost ran into the girl.
"Was— was that one of your ghosts?" gasped Lucy.
Aravis stared wide-eyed into the darkness.
Another cry ripped through the night, shrill and rattling and hollow. And close by.
The girls looked at each other.
"There they are!" shouted a boy behind them, and they glanced back just as the figure of Rabadash dropped down into the passage, sword flashing at his side, and Glozelle's silhouette appeared atop the wall.
Lucy pulled her arrow back and fired as Aravis bolted away, but the shaft whizzed straight past Rabadash and splintered against the giantish stonework.
She doubled back as Glozelle dropped down to follow.
Supple boots pounded stone, Aravis' shadow vanished into a wide room up ahead, and two sets of heavy footsteps clapped right on their heels.
Lucy veered through a crack in the wall and leapt over a heap of rubble, nearly twisting her ankle on a broken slab as she slipped between the crumbling remains of a fallen archway, and burst out again into a valley of monolithic pillars standing up black against the blood red sky, running for minutes upon minutes as if through the desolation of a foreign planet.
She paused to duck into a shadowy place once the footsteps behind her had long since faded, lungs burning with the bite of the wild air, distant shouts giving the only hint as to the direction of the chase, echoing through the giant maze.
She'd just begun to wonder if Aravis had gotten away, too, when another rasping scream raked the night, and a tingling chill ran straight through her bones, shuddering and rubbing her arms reflexively as she glanced over her shoulder into the towering, shadowy walls.
The clap of footsteps touched again at the edge of her hearing.
But… from the wrong direction?
Her brows twitched in confusion. The careers couldn't have circled all the way around to the north in the time it had taken her to run straight here.
Had she gotten turned around somehow?
She inched out of her hiding spot and hopped up onto a low section of the nearest wall, climbing up its jagged ridges, hoping to gain a better view of the area she'd ended up in, rough stone digging into her fingertips, bow still clutched tight in one hand.
The shadowy maze map opened up around her, its edges just beginning to gleam in pale moonlight, but the ruined walls still shrouded most of the surrounding rooms and corridors, invisible footsteps pounding ever closer.
And then something else caught her eye, moving along the tops of the walls against the dark horizon, and her heart stopped in a bolt of terror.
Bony silhouettes crawled and slipped over pale stone, white creatures, pale and ridged and slithering, messes of legs and snaking bodies, almost dragonish, but utterly unlike the bulky mass of the dragon she'd already encountered; these looked scarcely larger than men, moving as if every joint were dislocated.
Lucy almost slipped from her perch, scrambling back down the way she came on shaky arms, leaping to the hard ground and doubling back toward the campsite.
She veered east, aiming to avoid any careers on her way back, but even the idea of meeting Peter in the dark did not strike fear the way it should have, and the next rasping cry sent a chill through her blood, the same scream she'd heard from the tower last night.
She would have preferred real ghosts to this.
Her boots skidded over pebbles as she screeched to a sharp halt and struck a dead end, cursing and bolting back to a crack in the wall she'd passed a moment ago.
She veered into the dark patch of broken stone and slammed straight into something else with a sharp yelp, crashing hard to the ground.
Pain shot up from her knee, panic snapping to her brain as she scrambled back to her feet and the other figure hauled itself up against the crumbling wall; a human figure, face pale and overshadowed with wild red hair, green eyes snapping up to her.
Peridan.
For a second she stared, fixed to the earth, and then another set of footsteps clapped down the corridor and Lilliandil crashed in behind him, grabbing his arm and reeling to a halt as her eyes locked onto Lucy, messy blonde hair falling into her pretty, panicked face.
Something skittered in the corridor behind her, bone raking over stone, and Peridan burst past Lucy without a single word, dragging his district partner down the passage as shadows moved in the distant northern end of the room they'd come from.
Lucy wheeled and bolted after them.
In a moment she overtook them, veering into a long stretch of open rooms and cursing in her head again for the lack of cover, glancing back, Peridan half limping as his delicate figure pelted in close pursuit, something white tied tight around his thigh.
She forced her eyes ahead again, and the wall fell away to her left where pale grey countryside sprawled out beyond layers of geometric castle stone, rooms opening up ahead into a desolate garden courtyard, massive paving stones uprooted where the trees had broken through in their fruitless search for water, jutting out over a sharp drop where they'd begun to crumble over the next level.
Lucy jumped a wide gap, Peridan and Lilliandil pounding behind her as a horrible inhuman shriek split the air with a crack of stone, and something white bowled down into the courtyard. Lucy lurched forward with the impact, the slab beneath her feet loosening from its place, tilting.
She dove for the nearest dead tree and slammed into its twisted trunk as roots snapped underfoot, splinters striking her legs like whips as the pavers cracked, and she glanced over her shoulder as the middle of the courtyard bowed and groaned and collapsed in on itself, like a bridge snapping in two, gargantuan stone slabs crashing like thunder to the level below.
Shattered pavers spilled out beyond the dropoff, and Lucy clutched the tree for dear life, heels hanging out over a steep ramp to the bottom, a cloud of chalky dust billowing up from the impact.
Two tiny figures moved amongst the rubble, Peridan and Lilliandil picking themselves up, miraculously uncrushed, white dust in their hair, the girl pulling the stumbling boy toward the opening.
But something else shifted to life behind them, something the size of a man slithering out of the dust as if it were snow, full moon glinting along the sharp ridges of its back, the swish of a spiny tail, horrible spiked arms and twisting body as it lurched too quickly after them.
Lilliandil shrieked, Lucy tightened her grasp on a rough branch and hauled herself up onto solid ground as the creature opened its gaping jaw, rows of teeth glinting like cut crystal, a wingless dragon of skin and bone.
It pounced on Peridan.
His cry barely tore from his throat before he crashed to the shattered ground and his head snapped back with a crack, but still amidst the flurry of terror he fumbled with his belt loop and metal flashed into the moonlight, slashing up into the beast with an unearthly shriek and a sharp recoil.
He struggled to kick out from under it, grasping at broken stone, and Lucy nocked an arrow, drawing it back and shooting down into the mass of writhing pale flesh.
It struck with a chunk and the monster drew back as Peridan clawed his way out from under it, struggling up to his knees.
Lilliandil stumbled down into the castle's lower level beyond the rubble, clutching her arm and glancing over her shoulder.
"Go," shouted Peridan, "Just go!"
And she nearly obeyed before she shrieked "Peridan!" and the beast bore down on him again, wide jaws crunching over his throat.
His last cry came out in a gurgle.
The creature convulsed with a snap of its neck and threw him crack against the stone, metal clattering out of his grasp, teeth flashing red and then closing over his ribcage with another convulsing crack.
Peridan's body splayed out limp as a ragdoll, darkness pooling out from under his throat and chest and carving paths through pale dust, eyes open and glinting in the moonlight as the boom of a cannon split the air.
Lucy drew another arrow and fired down into the monster's neck.
It recoiled, clawing at itself and wheeling back in search of the source of the attack as Lucy nocked the third arrow and shot just as it lunged up the rock face, the bolt lodging by sheer chance into its skeletal eye socket with a wild scream.
Lucy stumbled back as it reeled and jerked out of control, and a flash of blonde hair disappeared over the ride down a set of giant steps and out of sight.
Heart pounding, Lucy doubled back before she had time to watch it die, tripping over her own feet and struggling back onto the path she was supposed to be taking as another rasping shriek erupted into the night, pure adrenaline flooding her system and blurring her mind as she lurched into a jarring sprint.
A new corridor opened at the end of the courtyard to her right and she ducked down it, footsteps ricocheting for what felt like an eternity until she burst back out into the place where she'd last seen Aravis, now empty, the glow of the fire flickering over ruins in the distance.
The others must be there, somewhere.
The idea of careers didn't even register as a threat now.
She bolted west without pausing for a break, following the wall toward the opposite side of the fire, but almost at once another shadow flickered at the edges of her vision, streaking along at the top of the wall above her.
Keeping pace.
Every hair on her body stood on end, and the shadow lurched before she could even glance up, crashing down behind her as a sharp involuntary scream burst from her throat and she nearly lost her footing, charging blindly forward just to stay upright.
An unearthly shriek echoed her cry and claws scrabbled over stone as Lucy snatched an arrow from her quiver, trying to string it while she ran, skidding around a sharp corner and crashing to a halt at a partial dead end.
A low, jagged wall jutted up to waist height in front of her, and she spun as she nocked the arrow and fired, spinning again before she even saw it strike, shouldering her bow and scrambling over the half-wall as the beast screamed behind her.
But the motion at her back lurched just before she pulled herself clear, hot teeth clamping down on her leg.
Fire-pain exploded up her calf with a surge of panic and a shriek she couldn't even distinguish between herself or the beast, its jaw tightening as she braced for the tug.
Then it let go with a scream, and before Lucy even realized she was free, she dropped to the opposite side of the wall, world spinning, grasping down for her leg to find it slick and wet and ridgy and strange and hot.
The beast shrieked again behind her, and she tried to put her weight on her good leg, but her boot slipped over slick stone and she whimpered involuntarily at the effort even as shockwaves of adrenaline blocked out the pain, blood pumping and gushing under her fingers as she crawled forward on her elbows instead, wet hands slapping stone.
Deafening gurgling growls flooded her ears.
It was going to kill her.
In a second it was going to kill her.
But when at last she glanced over her shoulder, a flash of metal arced through the air on the opposite side of the wall, and crashed down into the monster's long white neck with a spurt of black blood.
Shivering screams tore the night open.
Strong arms pulled the sword free, wild hair whipping in the moonlight as the human figure ducked under a flash of claws and slashed again, hacking at the monster's throat, two, three, four times, until something snapped and the bone-white horror convulsed backward and flopped over on itself, its severed neck hanging on by only a thin strip of flesh, twitching like a snake's dead tail.
The human figure stepped back, chest heaving, silhouetted against the stars, and then he turned and leapt over the wall, sheathing his sword in a flash as he knelt beside her and grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Are you okay?"
"Caspian?" she choked, grasping his jacket with bloody hands.
"Yeah," he panted as his eyes flashed over her in an instant and caught sight of her leg, letting go and pulling free of her desperate fingers to look at it.
"What, how— you—" She glanced toward the feebly twitching monster on the other side of the crumbled wall, head spinning. "How did you—?"
"I heard you scream," he gasped, rolling up her pant leg to reveal a jagged and glistening mess that almost made her stomach turn in spite of the merciful darkness.
Caspian produced something silver and tore the hem of his shirt before she knew what he was doing, ripping off a long strip and tucking a small knife back into his pocket before wrapping the cloth twice around her leg and pulling the knot tight.
She choked on a whimper, almost more from the shock than the pain, and he grabbed her shoulder again.
"Sorry."
"S'okay," she gritted, grasping his arm and glancing down the abandoned corridor.
His black eyes flashed back toward the monstrous, bony corpse. "What was that thing?"
"Dunno," she breathed, and coughed. "A ghost. They're coming from the north, they were chasing—"
"They? How many?"
"I— uh, four, maybe? A few, anyway, I'm not sure. One of them's dead, it killed Peridan."
Caspian's eyes snapped back to hers. "Peridan?"
She nodded weakly, and he almost asked something else before he seemed to think better of it, and shook his head.
"Two down, then, we're not done yet. You need to get out of here." He looped an arm under her shoulders before she could protest, and hauled her up to her feet, shouldering her full weight as she gasped and clung to him.
"Wait," she choked, "where are the others?"
"Ours? I left Ed back—"
A clatter of rocks interrupted him and they both glanced up into the shadows where it had come from amongst the northern pillars.
Caspian tugged her down the passage toward the fire before either of them could speak, and Lucy limped as her leg screamed in protest, but the pain only cleared her mind.
"I can walk," she breathed, pulling away from Caspian's support so they could move faster, though not letting go of him entirely.
"Are you sure?"
They turned a corner into the edge of the firelight, but any answer she might have given died on her lips as another figure stepped out in front of them, back-lit in the red glow of the blaze flickering just beyond the same fallen pillar where she'd sheltered with Aravis.
Lucy pulled up short and stumbled back against the pillar's broken solitary base, grasping for support against its jagged surface just as she recognized Glozelle, and Caspian drew his sword.
The career boy strode closer, something almost like a smile flashing across his face as Caspian stepped out to meet him, and Lucy shrugged her bow down and fumbled for an arrow, hands shaking so violently that it only slipped off the string when she tried to nock it.
She cursed under her breath, frustration building as the boys strode closer to each other, blades glittering in the firelight, Caspian's still streaked with black blood. But before they could clash, a shadow leapt up to the top of a standing pillar several yards behind them, and Lucy glanced up to the silhouetted monster perched there, coiling, aiming, sunken eyes flashing.
Glozelle barked something just as it dropped.
Caspian jumped out of the way and Glozelle lost his footing and crashed into the fallen pillar as Lucy finally nocked her arrow, pulled it back, and shot.
The bolt struck the monster's throat and it wheeled with a scream.
Caspian bolted straight for it, diverting its attention as she shakily drew another arrow, and another shriek burst through the night as his blade flashed and the beast coiled back, shaking its head, stumbling as if reorienting itself, dark blood spurting from where one of its eyes had once been.
Lucy pulled her second arrow back and fired, but missed, the projectile sailing over the creature's spiny back and clattering to the stone beyond.
She reached back in a flash and this time her hand closed around a single bolt.
Her last arrow.
She drew it and desperately tried to steady her hands as she fitted it on the string.
Movement flickered in the corner of her vision as Glozelle hauled himself to his feet, and for a moment her hopes rose, the boy's blade rising as he rushed into the fight, but Caspian just barely blocked in time.
"No, you idiot!" cried Lucy at the career boy, "What are you doing?"
Glozelle slashed again and Caspian ducked, swinging his own sword into the boy's chest, but it only glanced off his body armor, and then the beast coiled around and lurched for them.
Teeth flashed, clamping around Glozelle's chest and slamming him to the ground, but the monster couldn't quite fit its jaws around his armor, and the career boy smashed the hilt of his sword over its head with a cry.
Caspian slashed it across the back, and it wheeled on him just as he struck it the other way across the face and blood spurted from its pale mouth, the fleshy part stretching between its jaws torn through with a horrible wail as it jerked away.
Glozelle stumbled to his feet and swung again at Caspian, and Lucy pulled her arrow back in a panic, their tangled figures dancing at the end of the shaft so that she could never quite get a clear shot.
Caspian blocked a hard blow but his sword clattered away over the stone, and he dove under the career boy's next swing and bowled him over onto his back.
Glozelle landed hard with Caspian on top, sword flying from his grasp just as the monster lunged for them again, and Lucy shot before she could think.
She struck the beast in the face and its jaw snapped shut mere inches from Caspian's head, jerking back and bursting into a mad rage, knocking into the giant pillar as it lurched to no avail, screaming, collapsing and struggling back up only to collapse again.
Two dark-haired boys rolled over in front of its death throes, a mess of arms and legs and strangled shouting, until Glozelle's sword flashed up from the ground and thick blood sprayed over moonlit stone.
Lucy froze.
A cannon boomed.
Slowly, they shifted, and the boy on top collapsed as his attacker shoved him off, rolled over, and coughed.
The moonlight caught his face.
Caspian.
Lucy almost collapsed with relief.
He craned his neck to glimpse the shuddering monster as it twitched its last, sweat glistening against his ragged profile, and shoved Glozelle's body the rest of the way off his legs, stumbling unsteadily up to his feet and dropping the career boy's sword with a clang.
Lucy darted for him in spite of the pain stabbing through her leg, and threw herself into his arms.
Caspian caught her by the waist and clutched her so tight she thought she might break, overpowering and suffocating and trembling so that she couldn't even tell which of them was shaking, the world consumed for a moment by cold wind and burning blood and her heart beating wildly against his chest.
When at last he loosened his grip and lowered her to the ground, she clutched his jacket and looked up into his face, blood spatter dripping down his cheek, dark eyes searching hers instead of speaking.
And then she glanced down at Glozelle, the boy's throat slashed so deeply he'd practically been decapitated, eyes glinting unseeing in the moonlight, and she looked quickly away again to bury her face in Caspian's chest, his own heart pounding just as wildly as hers.
A distant commotion made them both look up a moment later, muffled noises drifting from the opposite side of the courtyard in the southern maze beyond the fire, inhuman shrieking and a shout and a clatter of metal.
Caspian separated from her to pick his own blade up off the ground, wiping it on his jacket before sliding it into its sheath. "Come on," he murmured, wrapping an arm around her shoulders again and leading her west along the northern courtyard wall. "While they're occupied."
"Who's down there?" she asked, limping after him and glancing over her shoulder.
"Rhince, last I saw, and maybe Peter, but he—"
"What about Susan?"
"I don't know, haven't seen her at all."
For a moment the fire blazed fully into view through a gap in the wall before stone overshadowed them again, and a split second later a whiz flew behind them and Lucy whipped around as a bolt shattered against a fallen pillar a few yards away.
She stiffened and Caspian glanced back into the courtyard.
"Found her," breathed Lucy shakily.
"She must be up in the rocks on the other side of the fire." Caspian looked at her. "Stay out of the light."
Lucy nodded, but before she could move again, harsh footsteps pounded up behind them and Rabadash burst out into the courtyard.
She glimpsed his stark silhouette as he ran straight behind their backs without seeing them; in fact he didn't even seem to be looking as he bolted across the brightly lit expanse and out into the night without a single glance over his shoulder.
Two more figures burst out after him just as he vanished beyond the far pillars, and in a thunderclap of recognition, Lucy glimpsed her own allies, Edmund's messy dark hair, Aravis' broadsword gleaming in the blinding firelight.
Her heart jumped in alarm, and Caspian shouted "Ed!" before she could even get the words out.
But the cry barely left his throat before another whiz shot through the courtyard, and both figures skidded to a halt as a shining black arrow clattered to the wall behind them, just at the edge of Lucy's vision.
For a split second everything hung in limbo as Lucy strained to see what had happened in the dark.
Edmund glanced at Aravis, blank shock just barely registering on his face against the firelight.
And then Aravis put a hand up to her throat and shiny thick blackness gushed over it, slipping between her fingers as she stumbled, and Lucy glanced again in confusion to the black arrow laying against the wall, droplets spattered over stone.
Her stomach dropped.
It had gone straight through her.
Aravis' knees buckled and Edmund grabbed her, whisked her into his arms and stumbled back into the shadows behind the broken pillar, another arrow flying after him and bouncing off the stone where he'd been standing half a second ago.
Lucy gripped Caspian, breathless, and then another figure darted out across the courtyard from the other side of the fire, golden hair and silver blade flashing, bolting straight for the place where Edmund had disappeared.
No.
Lucy reached for an arrow but her fingers closed around air, and before she could think, before Caspian could stop her, she lunged past him and leapt out into the bright open space.
"Lucy!"
Caspian's cry fell on deaf ears as the jarring pain shot up her leg and blocked out every other sensation, boots skidding, knees crashing to the ground in Peter's path as she pulled her tiny dagger and thrust it out in front of her, no power but the rasp in her desperate voice.
"Stop!"