Chapter Seven

It was very dark in this little wood, and despite the absence of the Empress, long gone with only her taunts to remind Susan she had ever been there, there might be things almost as bad in this forest. Animals that did not remember their roots in the Golden Ages of Narnia, but remembered only this Empress.

Susan reached to pull her cloak more tightly around her, only to find that she was not wearing it. She had left it in the clearing it would seem. She half-turned, uncertain, then turned back again. She would not go back to that clearing.

Some old instinct made her check her side. She found her bow there, just as it should be, and the quiver on her back. But for all the good they would do her, she thought bitterly, they might as well be in the clearing, lying next to her cloak. In her hands, they were useless.

She felt as though she should be mourning her loss. This bow had been a part of her, almost a part of Narnia. This bow, she knew, was legend, as was the queen who had wielded it. But she had turned her back on Narnia, and this piece of Narnia had turned its back on her.

Well she was back now! Why then, could she not use this bow as she once had? What was it that was holding it back, making it stiff in her hands? Was it the air? Some foul curse this Empress had sent on the winds to hold her back, to stop her from fulfilling the prophecy?

For a minute she could almost feel regal again, could feel the weight of a circlet in her hair and the strength of a bow in her hand, in her ability to halt any attack, hit any target.

And then there was a rustle in the bushes and she was tugged inescapably back down to earth and back into the depths of her fear.

The underbrush was thick here, and tangled, almost as though it had grown together for the sole purpose of obscuring its denizens. She took a deep breath and felt for her dagger, only to find it missing. She had been disarmed of the one weapon the Empress knew she could still use. Despair bubbled in her throat.

It was a wolf, in the bushes. Its yellow eyes glinted in the strange, half-light of the forest, and what light there was glinted off of its fangs. It was lanky, yes -- its ribs were showing through. But its eyes were wild, and she could tell that it was hungry. Hungry and desperate.

There had been wolves on their side, once. Majestic and noble, their eyes a deep brown or even an endless blue, their fangs not frightening but awe-inspiring, their powerful legs and the muscles that rippled in them willing servants of the rulers of Narnia, to carry messages or to protect villages from some threat. They were talking wolves of course -- Wolves -- and Susan could remember speaking with them, enjoying their company. They knew tales of the deep forests of Narnia, of the beautiful and powerful things that had once lived there, that might -- and this had sent tingles of delight up her spine -- lived there still.

But this wolf, this growling, snapping, wolf, was not a friend. It had forgotten speech and nobility, in favor of hunger and desperation -- something had done this to it, to the wilds and the wolves of Narnia. The Empress.

Susan felt a surge of rage and a surge of sorrow. This should not be.

She drew her bow and put an arrow to the quiver and the wolf flinched. So it still remembered what a bow was.

Susan felt her hands grip the wood which felt suddenly supple, almost warm. Willing to do her bidding, to perform the feats it had once performed, long ago, in brighter times.

She swiftly pulled an arrow from the quiver, notched it -- hesitated. It was not quite right, this feeling. The bow in her hands was eager to perform as it knew it could, but something was holding it back. She was holding it back? She took a deep breath, and swallowed, and the wolf fled through the underbrush, its body low to the ground and its eyes showing its unsatisfied hunger.

Susan stood holding her bow, feeling the energy that crawled and tingled through her fingers slowly fade until the bow was dull and cold again, the wood stiff.

And yet somehow it was not quite as cold, not quite as stiff, as it had once been. When she gripped it her fingers shaped around it as they should. Her bow was once an extension of her, of her arms, her hands, her will. Perhaps it would never be quite that way again. But a tingle of the old feeling, the old bond, had been there. That could grow, she felt almost sure. She might never again be Susan, Queen of Narnia, but she could be Susan, Champion of Narnia.

"Queen Susan?" A voice asked from her left. She whirled without thinking and pointed her bow, the arrow still notched. Her arms rose automatically and the bow leapt to her aid. She had to bite back a smile.

It was Kort, his axe clutched in his hand. "I'm not here to harm you Queen Susan." Kort said with a small smile flitting across his face even in this dim wood.

He surveyed her stance, the smile on her face and the bow in her hand. "Besides, I'm not so sure I could strike with my axe before I had an arrow in me."

Susan smiled back and lowered her bow. "I'm sorry Kort. There are unfriendly things in this wood."

She remembered her encounter and her face hardened. "You will lead me back to the main party? We must leave these woods I think, and then we must hold a conference."

"Beg your pardon, but a queen doesn't think." Kort said. "Not to her followers. She knows."

Susan paused, taken aback.

"I bet your pardon --" Their dwarf began, his ruddy complexion reddening.

"No, no." Susan said immediately. "You are right. We must leave these woods."

Kort nodded. "As you command my queen."

Their little band emerged from the woods the next day, the sunlight shining down on them in full again. Susan conferenced with Namir, Kort, and Arod, explaining her encounter with the Empress and her minion. Namir frowned as only a cat can, his eyes drawing together into slits.

"This is not promising Queen Susan."

"I agree." Susan said quietly. "She does not consider me a threat, and she left with a clear purpose in mind, although I do not know what it is."

It was a day and a half later when they crested a ridge to find a wide plain spread out before them. The expanse of grass was uninterrupted except by an enormous rock jutting up from the ground about thirty feet away, down the sloping hill. And there, standing in the shadow of the rock were two figures. One of them Susan recognized from mere days ago -- a so-called queen, an Empress with cold eyes and a colder laugh. It took her a moment to recognize the other -- a small, slight figure with dark hair, whose expression of panic was out of place on a face that should be alive with laughter.

Lucy. Lucy with a knife to her throat.

A/N: One more chapter to go! One more! Well, one more and possibly an epilogue. I'm not sure. But I'm committed to finishing this, and hopefully soon. I'm starting a new story soon, in the HP fandom (info in my profile if you're interested), and I want to have things all wrapped up, neat and tidy, when I do. One chapter left to go in this story max before I start anything new.

Please let me know what you thought: )