I followed behind Edmund as everyone followed behind me. We made our way together through the ruins looking for any more evidence into what had happened to our home.
Edmund knelt down beside a large rock and with further inspection, it was obvious that this rock didn't belond here, it just didn't fit in.
"Catapults," stated Edmund. We all looked to him in shock. "What?" asked Peter, desprate for him to continue explaining. Who would do such a thing to Cair Paravel? Edmund turned his head to look at us and with a frantic look he said, "this didn't just happen."
"Cair Paravel was attacked," I clarified. Edmund got back up onto his feet to re-join us but Peter then wandered off a little away from the group towards where several stone walls still stood strong with large vines growing up and along them.
Peter discarded a few twigs and dead weeds before starting to lean against a part of the wall. Edmund quickly ran forward to help him and they made quick work of it and as the wall moved to the side it revealed a large, old, wooden door. There was a place for a key but unfortunately we didn't have one.
Peter took advantage of the wood being old and rotten and broke through some of the wood around the lock and by doing so was able to open it. It was pitch dark inside. As the door swung open for what must have been the first in a very long time, it broke of the top hindge and then hung there slightly, leaning away from the wall.
Peter then grabbed a large stick. He pulled out his pocket knife and began to cut away at his school shirt, he ripped off along strip from the bottom before glancing at Edmund and my bags that we still had over our shoulders. "Don't suppose, either of you have any matches, do you?"he asked as he wrapped the white fabric around the top of the stick to make a torch. Edmund and I shared a fake look of thought before in complete unison we pulled open our bags and reached in saying, "No..but will this help." We each grabbed a torch and offered them out to Peter.
Our twin connection was quite strong but the others were getting used to it finally but their eyes still widened in shock had pricese and identical each movement we made was and how it was in perfect sync. We loved to freak them out like that.
Peter gave us a playful scowl as he said, "you might have mentioned that a bit sooner!" Edmund and I just smirked and then headed through the door and down the stone steps. Peter motion for Lucy and Susan to go ahead of him.
As the others continued down the crumbling yet still strong steps, Lucy and I broke off and gazed down below us from a sort of balcony. Everything around us was cracked, broken and crumbling away into nothing. It was terrible to see. This was the vault. The Narnians were to put all our belongings down here if something ever happened of we disappeared. We had already kept alot of belongings down here before we left.
Lucy and I looked down in amazement at the room. The bottom was a semi-circular shaped room. There were five sections built into the rock. Each had a statue version of our older selves. Then infront of each statue was a large golden chest.
Lucy and I shared a look before darting down the steps to join the others who had stopped at the large iron gates. Peter passed Edmund and Susan and pushed open the gates and stepping inside.
"I can't believe it," he remarked as he gazed around the room in amazement, "its all still here." Lucy dashed over to her chest on the far right, being watchful of where she stepped. My chest was situated between Peter's and Edmund's. Together Edmund and I walked over to open our own chests to see what we could find.
The chests were very large and the lid was quite heavy, which was to be expected with it being made of solid gold. There were incravings all over the chest telling about us and our lives here in Narnia. Edmund of course first pulled out his old war helmet and tried it on.
I turned back as I heard Lucy say, "I was so tall." She had one of her old and beautiful golden riding dresses that I had given to her for her 18th birthday. "Well," remarked Susan, "you were older then." Edmund then spoke, we looked to him with his helmet on and saw it was too big for his head, "as opposed to hundreds of years later..." I laughed and finished for him, "when your younger." A well known thing about Edmund and I, we liked to finish each other's sentances.
Susan had pulled out her bow and quiver in hand as she laughs along with Edmund and I. Peter then pulls his shield from next to his chest and blows on it, disturbing the dust particales. He then began to walk over towards his chest inbetween Susan and I.
Lucy's voice then broke the silence asking,"what is it?" I glanced over my shoulder at my two sisters. "My horn," remarked Susan, "I must have left it on my saddle, the day we went back." I then addressed them, "someone must have picked it up and forgotten to bring it down here or wasn't able to." Susan nodded, sadly. That horn did come in handy quite a few times.
At this moment, Peter opened his chest and we all turned to watch as pulled Rhindon, his sword from the top of the pile. He pulled the sword from its sheath and held it tightly in his grip and watched as what little of light there was in the room bounced off the blade. He then quoted, "when Aslan's bares his teeth, Winter meets it's death." Lucy then sighed and continued, grabbing all of our attention, "And when he shakes his mane... We shall have Spring again."
She said it so sadly and her eyes were so lost and full of despair as she then said, "Everyone we knew... Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers... they're all gone." All our eyes were now glazed over. We hadn't thought of it that way, not until now. I wipped away a stray tear at thr corner of my eyes.
Peter then spoke up firmly after the long, sad silence, "I think its time we found out whats going on!"
We had then all fallen silent as we returned to rumaging through our chests for our belongs. Edmund and Peter left to go change while us, girls were still looking. Before they did they turned back to look at us, "don't take forever, please." We each gave them a look of annoyance and I said, "technically, we haven't been to Narnia for several hundred years and so we are going to take our time, playing dress-up." They both rolled their eyes before leaving us to our fun.
One of the first things I found was one of my old dresses that I had given to Lucy. I had woren this dress near the beginning of our reign and as I got older and a little taller, I out grew it and knowing how much Lucy loved it, I gave it to her. She had been absolutely extatic that day I walked into her chambers and gave it to her.
"Lucy!" I called, picking up the dress and skipping my way over to her. She looked at me and her eyes widened in excitment at seeing the dress. "Someone put this with my things," I stated as I handed it to her. She held the dress up against herself and once she was satisfied she began to change into it. She didn't any help as we were quite used to these medieval dress, so Susan and I continued looking for our own outfits.
The dress had a lit golden bodice with a orange skirt and orange sleeves and a white underskirt. The sleeves had a golden tint to them and were made of a different material to the rest.
Susan chose one of her old purple gowns. This was one she normally used for riding or hunting. Hunting had been a pass time we all enjoyed but Susan did it a bit more then we did.
Finally spotted exactly What I was looking for. It was a beautiful cream dress withy signature long sleeves and a brown bodice with two gold bands, one around the middle of the bodice and one the bottom of it. I wrapped a long red cloak around my shoudlers and slipped on a pair of short heeled, knee high boots. Lastly I slipped on a pair of black, lace, fingerless gloves.
Once I was finished, I turned to face my sisters who were also putting finishing touches on their outfits. We all beamed around at each other, admiring the others' outfits. We all then sat down on the edge of Susan's chest and began to braid each other's hair. Susan did an infinty braid in my hair and I pulled back two parts of Lucy's hair and twisted them and then tied them together at the back of her head. Lucy did Susan's, brushing back part of her hair and like both her's and my hair tied it at the back.
This was when Edmund and Peter, wandered back in looking quite bored. Edmund was wearing a blue tunic with a white undershirt and brown breeches. Peter also wore brown breeches with a grey undershirt and brown tunic.
"Are you girls about finished yet?" asked Peter as he and Edmund went to retrieve there weapons. We began to do the same. "Yes, for your information, we are," I said as I walked in between them to our chests and grabbed our weapons. I took two extra daggers, identical to Lucy's and slipped them in my boots.
My staff wasn't in my chest but my statue, standing behind the chest, held it in her hand. I walked around the chest and yanked it out of it's place quite easily. It was slightly warm to the touch and it felt good to have it back. I buckled the straps theat held my staff to my back. The first went from my shoulder to my right hip and then a second strap was attached and wond around to my left hip. I quickly attached my staff to my back and walked over to Edmund who was just replacing his sword back into it's sheath.
"Come on," called Peter, seeing that we were all ready, "lets go."
We came to the top of a large hill and came to a lake, well it looked like a lake but was actually the Great River. On it was a small boat. It wasn't the boat that shocked us but what was in the boat and what they were doing. Two soldiers were carrying a Narnian dwarf and were about to through him into the water. Susan shot an arrow at the soldiers hitting one of them in the arm and another on the edge of the boat.
Susan aimed her bow and yelled, "Drop Him!" Not the best choice of words, if I say so myself. It looked as though the dwarf muttered something but he was gagged and to far away for us to hear. Peter, Edmund and I began to run towards the water but as we reached the edge Edmund gave me a look telling me to stay on the shore.
Susan released the arrow and it hit the same soldier as before except this time she got him in the chest and sent him tumbling back into the water. The dwarf was also thrown out into the watery depths. Peter dove in to save him while Edmund with my help using magic dragged the boat back to the shore. Both boys were now soaked to the skin.
Lucy fell to her knees next to the dwarf and pulled out her knife and cut through the bindings on his hands. Now that he was able, the dwarf removed the rope covering his mouth and coughed up the water that had entered his lungs. I stood between Peter and Edmund as usual, watching as Lucy got to her feet, closely followed by the dwarf and by the look on his face he definately wasn't feling thankful towards us.
"Drop Him!" he cried in frustration throwing the binds from his hands down on the ground. "Thats the best you could come up with?" he complained. I shrugged and said, "he had a point Su, it wasn't the best choice." She gave me a small glare before looking back to the dwarf, ignoring my comment.
"A simple 'thank you' would suffice," she stated. "They were doing fine drowning me without yor help," he said pointing out to the water. Peter then said, "maybe we should hve let them." I shared a surprised look with Edmund, that was going a bit far.
"Why were they trying to kill you, anyway?" asked Lucy, trying to ease the tension. The dwarf's hard gaze softened a little, "they're Telmarines. Its what they do." This shocked us, Edmund and I both looked to Peter as my twin said, "Telmarines? In Narnia?" The dwarf then looked up at us like we were stupid, "where have you been te last few hundred years?"
I shrugged and replied, "Its a bit of a long story." Susan handed Peter back Rhindon as he had taken it off before diving into the water. The caught the dwarf's eye and he must have noticed the old Narnian style. He took a step back in shock and began to study all of us, his eyes widened, like most, when he settled his gaze on my staff that could be easily seen over my shoulder.
He then stepped from foot to foot a bit nervously and remarked, "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." This confused us greatly and I couldn't help but share a small grin with Edmund who returned it before our faces became serious again as we looked back to the dwarf.
He glanced around at us and asked, "you're it? You're the Kings and Queens of old?"
Peter then decided to introduce himself, and like normal he went a bit far. He stepped forward out-stretching his arm to the dwarf and stated, "High King Peter, the Magnificent." We all chuckled away to ourselves. "I think you could have left off the last bit," remarked Susan. We all smirked at Peter, even the dwarf as he said, "probably."
I stepped closer to the dwarf and said friendly, "I told Aslan that calling him 'Peter the Magnificent' was a bad idea." Everyone laughed, Peter just scowled at us.
Peter then stepped back, unsheathing his sword, "you might be surprised." We all looked to him, I raised my eyebrows wondering what he was up to. He pointed the sword in the Dwarf's direction.
"Oh, you don't want to do that boy," he said. Peter smiled and then turned to face Edmund while also taking hold of the blade and stepping towards the dwarf so that he could take the sword. "Not me," said Peter, "him." I smiled up at Edmund who smiled proudly back at me as he also unsheathed his sword.
The dwarf took the sword in hand and it looked as though it was too heavy as the tip plummeted to the sand below and the dwarf kept it there as Edmund stood there waiting a few moment's for the dwarf to attack. The dwarf peeked up at us and Edmund turned his head to look at Peter and I.
Then out of nowhere, the dwarf lept forward and swung the sword, clashing into Edmund's and sending him off balance. Edmund quickly caught himself and when the dwarf attacked again, Ed ducked out of the way. He was now at the perfect height and the dwarf took advantage of it by elbowing him in the face, though not hard enough to break his nose.
"Edmund!" cried Lucy. The dwarf had a fake look of concern as he said, "oh, are you alright?" He swung at Edmund again but he dodged just in time, darting behind the dwarf and hitting him with the flat side of the blade on the butt. At this, Lucy, Susan, Peter and I began to laugh.
The dwarf waited another moment to catch his breath and Edmund glanced over at us again. The dwarf then spun on the spot lashing out at Edmund with a strong swing of the sword, Edmund blocked and then brought the sword up above his head, as he brought it down again, the Dwarf attacked his legs but Ed jumped just in time bring his legs up near his chest.
He then swung at Ed again and again but each time he was blocked and it was obvious his frustration was growing. Finally on the second attack, Edmund spun the dwarf's sword in a large circle and then struck and rapidly attacked again and again, with small fluid movements and did quick work of disarming him.
The sword flew away through the air and landed with a thud in the sand close by. Edmund held the hilt of the sword at eye-level and had the swords point directed right at the dwarf. The dwarf fell to his knees in shock "beards and bedsteads!" He then looked over the rest of us, "maybe that horn worked after all."
Was he talking about Susan's horn? How did that have anything to do with this? Edmund dropped his sword back to his side and then sheathed it at his waist and came to stand beside me.
Susan then asked the question we all wanted the answer to,"What horn?"