Author's Note: I make no money from this, but why would I want to? Many thanks to the incredibly encouraging reviewers, you're really spurring me on.
It took a day and night to reach the small, low-lying island some of them had seen from Eustace's back when he had carried a select few high above the place where the Lord Octesian had, somehow, met his death. As the Dawn Treader cruised in search of the best anchorage, Caspian, Eustace and the Pevensies joined Drinian on the forecastle, studying the low, scrub-covered land for sign of life through telescopes. "Are we going ashore?" Eustace wanted to know.
"Course we are," said Edmund promptly, lowering his glass. "Looks uninhabited, but one never knows: we might find a trace of at least one of our missing lords inland."
"I'll have the boat lowered for Your Majesties."
"Won't you come with us, Drinian?" Lucy urged him. "There's surely nothing aboard that can't wait for a few hours! Come and explore with us!"
The captain considered for a moment. "Very well, Queen Lucy, I'll join you ashore. Where are you scurrying to, Eustace?"
"To fetch my sword, of course!" the boy replied, as if it should be obvious. "We're best going armed, aren't we?"
"Reep is definitely having an effect on your kinsman," Caspian muttered to Edmund. "Still, I dare say he's right. Fetch your bow, Lucy; you'll assemble a party, Drinian? Sir Reepicheep! Do you intend to join our explorations?"
"At Your Majesty's service!" squeaked the Mouse, already halfway to the port bow where the boat was being gently lowered. Inside a few minutes the whole group was settled, with Drinian at the tiller, the Master Bowman and three sailors at the oars, and Reepicheep, for all the world like a carved prow figure, perched dangerously at the tip of the bow.
Lucy let her fingers trail in the water, softly humming to herself. Beside her, Eustace fidgeted, still uncomfortable with the long, straight sword (Caspian's second best) hung from a belt at his waist. "It all looks quiet enough, doesn't it?" he said, to nobody in particular.
"Looks can be deceiving," Edmund replied, squinting at the approaching shore. "I say! Rabbits!"
"We might shoot a dozen, Captain?" The Master Bowman sounded eager. "Won't be much sport, mind," he added, more gloomily. "If the place is deserted, they'll have no fear of folk. Shellin' peas, it'll be!"
"I see no objection. Your Majesties?"
"Rabbit stew will make a pleasing change from salt beef or venison," said the King. So, as Drinian drove the boat ashore, leaping lightly over the prow to ground the anchor well into the sand, the bowman and his party set arrows to their strings and crept forward to sight their prey.
"So much for shelling peas," said Eustace a second later, as every rabbit in range disappeared into a convenient burrow or bush, and the archers began to sweat and cuss with frustration. "They must have some experience of humans! See how they run!"
"P'raps it's inhabited after all," Edmund agreed, pointing sharply to their right. "See!"
"A cottage!" Lucy darted forward, only to stop short as her mind registered the building's tumbledown, blackened appearance. "Gracious! Quite burned out!"
"And not the only thing touched by fire," Reepicheep added, scratching the blackened bark of a twisted stripling , then fastidiously washing his claw. "See, Your Majesties! Half the trees hereabout are charred."
"So near the coast, it might be pirates' work?" suggested Caspian.
"Or the dragon's," said Edmund. Eustace shuddered.
"That would seem to be the highest point of land," Drinian remarked, gesturing to a low, domed hill some way inland and to the south. "Climb that and we should have a fair perspective of the lie o' the land; to say naught of what might await us further east."
"Missing the sway of the ship already, Drinian?" Caspian teased. "Very well; it looks an easy enough distance to make. Master Bowman! We shall leave your party to the hunt: should you discover aught of note, sound your horn, and we shall find you."
"Understood, Your Majesty," came the harassed reply. Lucy giggled.
"I shouldn't start looking forward to your rabbit stew yet, Caspian," she said, skipping beyond the blackened cottage, along a faint but discernable path. She paused, head on one side, considering the ruined structure. "Goodness! They can't have been very big, the people who lived here! Even I should have to stoop, if it still had its roof!"
The walk to the single hill worthy of the name was pleasant enough, despite the desolation of more burned buildings on the way. "It's a strange thing, mind," said Drinian, as they finished the inspection of a pair of larger ruins beside a brackish pond. "Listen! I doubt I've heard a single bird's song since we landed; there's not even a gull circling by the shore!"
"I'd not thought about it, but you're right," Edmund agreed, wrinkling his forehead. "It's not as if all the trees have been burned."
"Not even the majority of them, Sire; though there are few clusters bigger than copses to be seen," said Reepicheep, his nose twitching. "There are plentiful rabbits - as our unhappy Master Bowman will doubtless affirm. From a position more advantageous than yours, I have discerned the movement of countless insects in the grass. Yet it would appear that every creature with the ability to do so has abandoned this island entirely."
"To go where, I wonder?" asked Eustace.
"And for what reason?" added Drinian. "We're well inland now: no self-respecting pirate would venture so far from his ship."
"A civil war, perhaps?" Edmund volunteered.
"That wiped out the whole population?" Caspian sounded dubious. "Nay; having taken the trouble to fight, would the victors abandon the scene of their success? The land would appear fertile enough."
"There's another house, half fallen down, and all burned," said Lucy, who was feeling stupidly cold despite the brightness of the sky. "Let's have a look out to the horizon and go. There's something - desolate and empty about this island. I don't like it."
"And there seems to me small chance of learning more of the fate of our lost countrymen here," agreed the King, as the main body of the group set off in pursuit of Drinian and Reepicheep, the Mouse running to keep pace with his friend's long strides. "You're right, Lucy; with all these lonely ruins standing about, it really is quite eerie! I dare say that is why the people who once lived here left!"
"If they travelled to land further east, we'll be able to ask them," said Eustace, beginning to puff as the gradient of the slope proved to be more severe than it had looked. He caught the point of his sword (not having fastened the belt tight enough, it had slithered around to the front as he walked) between his legs, and stumbled. "Drat this thing! Anything to be seen, Drinian?"
"Nothing." Shielding his eyes against the glare of the noon sun on still water, Drinian scanned the distant horizon: looking, Edmund thought, aggravatingly cool, with most of his friends panting from the climb. "We shall simply have to go on in hope, as we have before."
"We've found two islands beyond those we used to know: why shouldn't there be dozens more?" said Edmund cheerfully. "All right; it looks like a gentler slope this side: why don't we stroll down, walk around the hill, and back 'round to the boat that way? It might give the archers time to catch us a couple of rabbits!"
Nobody had any objection to that scheme so, leisurely, they began an easy descent over the softly rolling ground. "There's no reason to camp here overnight, is there?" asked Lucy, almost fearfully. Caspian shook his head.
"None that I know of. Captain?"
"We might top up the sole water cask we brought ashore, I suppose, but there's naught to delay the ship: saving perhaps, the royal whims of Your Majesties."
"Whims, indeed!" Outraged into laughter, Caspian led his band of adventurers down onto level terrain and northward, around the hill and back toward the Dawn Treader. "Look! That stream must run down to the shore. Shall we follow it?"
"Let's," said Eustace, licking his lips. "And stop for a drink from it, too! Don't know about the rest of you, but I'm parched!"
The stream was cold, but not quite the refreshment they had hoped. "Even the water tastes of cinders," Edmund grumbled. "Any of this we take aboard had best be boiled and used for washing! We should have to be desperate to drink it!"
They reached the beach soon after, and turned sharply to the northwest, toward the high mast of the Dawn Treader, clearly visible on a treeless shoreline. "What's that?" asked Caspian, pointing to another low building; this one with a roof still intact, and seeming hardly touched by fire.
"A boathouse, by the look of it," answered Drinian, his curiosity piqued. Reepicheep scampered inside, to appear an instant later waving a small, well-made oar.
"With a boat still inside it, my Lord!" he squeaked excitedly. "Made for a child, perhaps: or, if our guesses about the people of those farmsteads were accurate, a dwarf."
"In fine condition, too," Drinian announced, stooping to enter and inspect the craft for himself. "A coracle, ash framed, with a waxed, waterproofed skin. A sturdy piece of craftsmanship."
"And ideally constructed for - perhaps - a Talking Mouse," said Reepicheep. "Perhaps I might - with Your Majesties' permission, and yours of course, my Lord Drinian…"
"Granted, Reep," said Caspian immediately.
"Then I shall take it back to the Dawn Treader."
"Or more likely," added Drinian with a teasing smile, "I shall take it, on your behalf! Very well, Reep, but remember; guard your tongue from now on, else I'll see you cast adrift in your prize!"
The Mouse twittered indignantly, brandishing its oar like another rapier until the laughter of its friends made its own amusement impossible to repress. "I shall watch my words with care, Captain," it cheeped, skipping ahead of the humans as they made their merry way back to the Dawn Treader's waiting boat.
By nightfall the land they had christened Burnt Island was a mere splodge of darkness on the western horizon. Carefully applying a further coat of waterproofing wax to his new vessel, Reepicheep sat on the main deck, softly singing the Dryad's song to himself. The abandoned boat of Burnt Island, it seemed to him, might prove highly valuable to one determined to sail farther than a galleon could go, right to the very End of the World itself.