I don't own Narnia or the Pevensies. I have a great deal of fun with them, though. :)

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"He's been acting queerly all day," Lucy commented despairingly, panting as they scrambled through the forest in search of their brother.

"I wonder what's eating him," said Timothy, pausing to give Lucy a leg up over a fallen tree half as tall as she was. Edmund, already ahead, smashed a thick branch aside with the flat of his sword.

"Whatever it is, I hope it has sharp teeth," he called back irately. If Lucy hadn't been so out of breath and worried, she would have laughed. She turned her head back to see how Timothy was getting along and tripped over a tree root, crashing into Edmund, who had apparently stopped in front of her. Thankfully, he was steadier on his feet than her and managed to grab her under the arms before she hit the ground, hoisting her back on her feet and bending over to pick up the scrap of blue cloth that had undoubtedly come from Peter's tunic.

"He didn't cut it," Edmund said, examining the small strip of fabric, turning it over in his gloved hands. "It was ripped. Wasn't by a plant; there's nothing that could've caught it around here."

"Peter!" Lucy shouted into the woods, her hands cupped around her mouth. "Peter, where are – "

- Edmund clapped a hand over her mouth.

"If something's taken him, let's not draw its attention," he said in a low voice, removing his hand. "Sorry, Lu."

Timothy approached behind them, sword drawn and ready, a question in his eyes. Edmund shook his head warningly, gaze trained on the ground, following something Lucy couldn't see, a pattern in the rot, perhaps? He began to move, his footwork careful, skirting around something he still watched. She stayed in place. She didn't want to disturb whatever it was he was looking at.

But it was fortunate she was watching her brother so intently, because she saw the claws before he did and threw herself at him, knocking him to the forest floor with a shout. The creature whooshed over their heads, screeching manically as its little prickly hands missed their prey.

"What in the name of…" Timothy began, but he was cut off as another one leapt from a tree on their right, swooping straight towards him; he held up his sword in self defense and the creature glanced off the flat of his blade, landing in a dazed heap beside Lucy and Edmund, who were struggling to regain their footing on the slimy ground. Lucy jerked her head back fearfully as it began to scrabble at the roots, trying to lift itself back up – it was one of the ugliest things she'd ever seen, including the strange rats in the field.

Its face resembled a monkey, to some extent, though its eyes were slitted like a cat's and its nose was turned up grotesquely, its one long, narrow nostril extending most of the length of its face. Its teeth, when it bared them at her horrified gaze, were all dangerously sharp and an awful shade of yellow. The rest of its body was hard to describe; the limbs itself were again like a monkey's, though with long claws at the end of each, and the fur not soft-looking but bristly and greenish grey. It was about a foot long. Stretched between the fore and hind legs were flaps of translucent skin, now crumpled as the creature was on the ground, but when it had been on the attack, in the air, they had served as a sort of wings, though no doubt they couldn't support the creature's weight. Lucy had once seen a picture of a flying squirrel – this resembled it, though it looked less cute and more lethal.

"Lu!" Edmund called – in her distraction, she had stopped trying to rise, her gloved hands now covered in slime, but he had managed it already and now reached down to pull her back up one-handedly. Her feet slipped around for a moment before she found her footing and he let go, the three of them forming a hurried triangle and looking up into the trees warily.

"Was that it?" Timothy asked worriedly. Lucy drew her dagger.

"I doubt it," Edmund replied.

As if in answer to his words, two more of the Void-monkeys, as Lucy had mentally named them, launched themselves at the travelers. Two swords flashed through the air; two heads dropped to the ground, severed from their bodies, and Lucy retched. She dealt the one on the floor a flying kick that dropped it several yards away, and it lay there, hissing furiously.

"For a boy, you're not bad with a sword," said Timothy.

"Excuse you," said Edmund.

"No offense meant."

Another shriek, and another three attackers. This time, Ed and Timothy alone weren't enough to catch them quickly enough, and Lucy thrust her dagger forward blindly. Something warm and sticky covered her hands, and when she looked up, one of the animals was impaled upon her weapon, its eyes glazing over as it gurgled its last of life and its blood seeped out over the tang and hilt. Swallowing her nausea, Lucy flicked her wrist and the carcass went spinning off into the bushes.

"Ow!" Edmund cried suddenly, and a furious swipe of his sword sent his foe hurtling away to smack into the broad trunk of a tree. "The little bugger bit me!"

"Are you all right?" Lucy asked concernedly, peering over his shoulder to see the damage. A set of small teethmarks decorated Edmund's sword-arm sleeve, just over his elbow, and a bit of blood was leaking out.

"I'll be fine," he said, grimacing and applying pressure with his free arm.

"Let's not linger," Timothy advised, glancing up at the trees, where more pink eyes were gleaming hungrily.

The three of them took off again, keeping their weapons out, jumping over anything in their path and barely managing to keep upright. Vines slapped past Lucy's face, though she kept half-bent to prevent the greater part of it. So quickly and recklessly were they fleeing that they didn't look to see what was ahead, and abruptly they burst forth into an entirely peaceful clearing, unremarkable but for the giant pit in the center. Casting a glance backwards, the travelers cautiously headed towards it. They were almost to the edge of it when something exploded up before them, something enormous, brown and hairy, something with too many legs and not enough eyes and a set of teeth that looked as though they could crunch a Calormene galleon in half.

"Oh sweet Aslan," Edmund said in one breath, craning his neck to look up at it. It couldn't be a spider – it had no eyes, and it had ten, not eight legs, ten disgusting, spindly, skittery legs that twitched before them, each as thick as a person's, though easily five times as long. Timothy glanced at Edmund, his face quite white, as though Edmund had said something fearsome.

"Plan of action, O King?" he asked, almost challengingly.

"Can't run," Edmund said in a low voice. The thing seemed to be waiting for them to make a move.

"Why not?" Lucy whispered. And at Edmund's tiny gesture, she saw what she hadn't before: at the bottom of the great pit, seemingly unconscious and quite green, was Peter.