The first thing to disturb them that night was rather fluffy, and Lucy (half asleep) didn't think it threatening in the least until it stopped snuffling around her brothers' sleeping bodies and bit her ankle.
She supposed bit was too strong a word, really, since it had only flat teeth, but it opened its little mouth and closed it around the top of her boot and had just started to squeeze when she let out a shriek and kicked it square in the face. Peter and Edmund both started from sleep, Edmund managing to draw his sword nearly slap Lucy in the face with the flat of it before he pointed it shakily into the darkness, his other hand groping on the ground, trying to help keep him upright. Timothy, at its point, raised his head sleepily.
"Whazzitwhathahuh?" Edmund said urgently, his tongue not quite as awake as the rest of him. The little creature had already wailed and scampered off towards the woodland with its tail between its legs, and Lucy was nearly as sleepy as her brothers, but she managed to reply.
"Ne'er mind," she mumbled tiredly. "Jussa dream."
It hadn't been, but it got the point across, and Edmund again sheathed his sword and dropped back to the ground, his cloak wrapped tightly about him once more. Peter blinked once, then said much more clearly than either of them,
"We should have someone keep watch."
"Why?" Lucy mumbled, her eyes shut tight.
"Because we're in the middle of a forest full of murderous beasts," said Peter, obviously four times awake as anyone else in the near vicinity. "We should have done it before but we were too tired to think of it."
"You do it then," Edmund groaned, pulling his hood around to cover his face.
"I would, but I can't move," Peter said practically.
"Oh."
"Why can't you move?" asked Lucy, turning her head on the ground to look at him. Out in the forest, something made a disconcerting noise.
"For the same reason I couldn't earlier," said Peter. "I think it must have something to do with sleep or unconsciousness. Whenever I wake up, I can't seem to move. It caught me by surprise the first time, just grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me until I fell unconscious, then when I woke up, I couldn't move. Same thing's happening now. But not as bad, I can talk."
" Obviously," said Timothy, somewhat crankily.
"Well, you'll be all right in a few moments, won't you?" Lucy murmured, snuggling further into her cloak.
"I suppose so."
"Then you take first watch," she said. Peter sighed.
"And what about those few moments?" he pointed out.
"Nothing's going to happen in – "
Something exploded from the bush a scant eight yards from Edmund's left, something not very large but something quite determined; it shot towards them with the dull, rapid thudthud thud of something pawed and cantering. Lucy let out a short noise of alarm and fumbled for her dagger, but her cloak got twisted about her, and Edmund had fallen back asleep, and Peter couldn't move, and all these thoughts stopped the breath in her throat in the few seconds it took for it to reach them. Then it was upon them, ramming bodily into a suddenly quite awake Edmund, who wheezed as the wind was knocked out of him and he was slammed into Lucy, cracking heads with her.
"Peter!" she cried out as she heard the rip of cloth and a choked whimper from Edmund, who was still struggling to regain his breath, but her eldest brother only gritted his teeth and appeared to concentrate very hard. She had entirely forgotten about Timothy until there came the ring of a sword being drawn and he moved very quickly between whatever it was that had attacked Edmund and Edmund himself.
A great and hideous squeal pierced her ears, waking her up completely. A second later, the thing went wheeling away, albeit with the sound of a limp in its gait.
"Are you all right?" Timothy asked to Edmund, rolling him back over.
"M'fine," Ed panted, wrenching away from the touch. "Nothing wrong with me. M'fine."
"Did it hurt you?"
"I'm fine!" snapped Edmund.
"Ed, calm down," Lucy said, frowning.
"I'm perfectly calm," he muttered angrily. Timothy stood from his crouch and moved away, wiping his sword on the ground and looking sour.
"Of course you are."
"No use fighting," said Peter reasonably. He seemed to have gained the use of his upper body and had sat up, using his arms to prop himself. "Ed, you sure you're all right?"
"Yes," Edmund said quite crankily. He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes tightly.
"My thanks to you, Timothy," said Peter, twisting slightly to face their ally. "That was some quick sword work. I'd expect as much from a soldier. Are you certain about being a farmer before?"
"Quite," said Timothy curtly, dropping to the ground again, though he did not lay down. "Though it's possible I joined the infantry at some point. I do seem to remember a great conflict at one time."
Lucy rolled onto her stomach, trying to fall back asleep as her brother continued to talk with Timothy. Edmund seemed to be attempting the same. How long Peter and Timothy remained awake, talking, she didn't know, but after a while the constant noise ceased to annoy her and became more of a comfort, something that made her feel more secure. It was good to know that someone was awake, watching over them, and soon she was drifting back to sleep.
When she awoke, it was light, cold and the ground was rather uncomfortably moist. Lucy raised her head groggily to glare at Edmund, who had prodded her into wakefulness, then asked as pleasantly as she could,
"What?" (It came out a touch crankier than she'd intended.)
"Your watch," said Edmund, shrugging. "You got off easy. I've been up for an hour. In another half hour, you wake all of us up. In the meanwhile you can get breakfast going."
"Yes, Your Majesty," she said teasingly, shifting to sit up a bit. She didn't feel very refreshed, but that was mostly because her clothes (and skin and hair, she noted with some disgust) were still matted with blood and crusty dirt and slime. Edmund lay down and seemed to fall asleep instantly, so she was left alone to get up and wrap her cloak more tightly about herself. It was rather cold.
"Yuch," Lucy muttered, brushing a bit of dried spider-blood off the bit of mail shirt that stuck out from beneath her overtunic. She struggled to her feet, still wrapped in her cloak, and reached for the packs, which had survived the night. Each of them had packed enough to last about three days, though dinner last night had been a bit larger than intended since they'd all felt so worn after the various trials of the day. Rooting through the packs, Lucy thought she could make a decent stew with some of the vegetables and water from the water gourds, but aside from not wanting to waste the water, she had a feeling that making a fire would attracted unwanted attention.
She settled instead on a simple meal of dried fruit and nuts, dishing out a portion for each of them and tearing into quarters what seemed to be a red pepper of sorts. Finished with that task, there was nothing left but to sit and look around at the shifting forest, the shadows that darted around the edges of the clearing and grow accustomed to the strange, haunting sort of birdsong that marked the morning.
Lucy had never been very good at sitting still for long; after about fifteen minutes, she felt inclined to get up and see what their friend the pit-monster had accomplished overnight. She got up from where she'd sat down on the dewy grass, made her way over to the edge of the pit and peered in curiously. Immediately, she wished she hadn't. It was quite obvious the thing was dead – just like a spider that's been dead too long, it had shriveled up, its enormous legs still cracked and broken and crusted with its own blood, but it lay on its side, seeming to have dried out.
Her stomach doing somersaults, Lucy hurried back to her party and sat down again, looking at the food reluctantly. She woke Peter up then, though Edmund had instructed her to wait another ten minutes, because Peter apparently took longer to wake up since the spider's venom had entered his system. Though he wasn't quite perky, he thanked her politely for waking him and waited for his body to respond again. And after ten minutes, Lucy poked Edmund awake and gently roused Timothy, and the four of them sat down to breakfast (though in Lucy's case, with something short of enthusiasm).
"You know," said Timothy after a long, chewing-filled silence. "I had the queerest dream last night."