32 - Devil At The Door
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
From the hall, Susan watched in terror as a brace of centaurs and satyrs barricaded the main gate of Cair Paravel with their own bodies. They had reinforced the iron gate outside with a heavy wooden one behind it. The wood was dryad elderwood, unbreakable by force alone—but the Witch's army had discovered that, and were now pounding at the barriers with flame as well as battering rams. Already, Susan knew from lookouts' reports that the iron gate had burst.
She shook, but not with fear for herself. She pressed a hand against her belly and whispered a prayer. Please, please hold. Saris had forbidden her to fight, but he had vanished over the castle wall long since, lending his strength and magic to the soldiers fighting desperately outside.
Never had she felt more helpless than now.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The wooden gate creaked and held, but Susan smelled smoke, and she could see the orange glow of fire through the straining crevice between the doors. It had never been a matter of if the Witch's army would attack ... but when.
Right, then.
She gritted her teeth and ran for her rooms. There, she snatched up her bow and arrows, and the ivory horn Father Christmas had given her so many years ago. Saris might not want her to fight, but neither would she stand by and let invaders mow their way into the castle without doing her part to stop them.
She fell back to an upper staircase overlooking the main hall, and took position behind a stone statue of an eagle. The statue's spread wings would shield her from attack. Nodding approval, she nocked an arrow and prepared for the worst.
And then the labor pains began.
- # -
Gasping with exertion, Peter swung his sword again. His attention was on the orc jabbing at him with its spear, but in his mind's eye he saw only the fiery towers of Cair Paravel. He hadn't taken a decent breath since his first glimpse of the burning castle. Were Susan and Aidan still safe?
"Look out!" called a satyr.
Peter spun just in time to avoid a plunging ax. The satyr attacked the minotaur behind Peter, and the pair fell away fighting.
Peter turned back to his own problems. The orc was faster and less tired. Peter was flagging, his steps slower and slower. He had done all he could to bolster his army's strength and courage, but they were at the end of their stamina.
Narnia was losing.
The enemy had brought catapults, and heavy stones flew through the air. Two smashed into the outer wall of the castle and sheared away the face of the stone. Peter's army couldn't even get close enough to the gates to reinforce the guard fighting desperately to keep the enemy back. So far away, so horribly far away. Aslan, help us.
Where was the Lion? How could he not come when they needed him so badly? Did he not know they'd lost Lucy? Did he not know they were about to lose this war to the Witch's forces? What had they been fighting for all along, if only to succumb to Jadis now? What was the point to all this battle?
Lucy, gone. Edmund, gone. Susan, about to have a baby and facing the sacking of Cair Paravel ... and Peter, helpless to save them.
He had failed.
Despair crushed at his heart. His breath came shorter and shorter. His lungs burned. His steps slowed as the orc swung again and again. Keep going, he begged himself. Keep going, keep going. Push toward the castle. But the orc's every swing came closer and closer to taking a piece of him with it.
Salvia swung into sight overhead and clawed at the orc's unprotected head. The hawk raked his talons across the orc's scalp, distracting it enough for Peter to dispatch it ... but another took its place. This one was bigger and faster. Peter dodged and lunged with all his strength and reach. And then a lucky swoop with the beast's ax handle took him clean off his feet.
Peter slammed to the ground, and what little wind he had left his lungs in a whoosh. His vision blurred. Pain from dozens of injuries flared through his body. Even the trampled snow couldn't cool the burning agony raging all over from his bones out.
The orc roared with laughter and slammed its booted foot into his ribs. Peter groaned and crumpled, seeing stars. "Narnian scum!" the orc bellowed. "You're meat for the troops!"
"The king is mine!" growled a voice. A man shoved the orc aside with a vicious sweep of his weapon.
Peter's eyes locked on the man's, and he recognized the Nazi who had followed them to Narnia almost two years ago, through the Wood between the Worlds. He sucked in a breath and struggled to get to his feet. "You!"
The Nazi stomped on Peter's chest, and pain flashed through Peter's ribs again as he slammed back down. He moaned and tried to twist the man's booted foot, but his fingers were so cold, his arms so tired ...
"I have no interest in prolonging this," the man said. He aimed his weapon—a bayoneted German rifle—and pointed it at Peter's head, then aimed with cold precision.
A snarl drew both men's attention. To their right, fighters scattered back to reveal Cori, pelting toward them with fury in her eyes. She leaped into the air in mid-run and shifted on the fly into her werewolf form with a roar. She plowed into the Nazi, and the two went tumbling away.
Peter flung himself onto his feet. "Cori, he has a—"
The gunshot cracked through the air. The werewolf yelped and stumbled back from the Nazi.
Heartsick, Peter watched the werewolf—his wife, the mother of his son, oh, Lion, help him—stare at the Nazi with shock and pain in her eyes. Blood oozed through the chinked chain mail covering her stomach. She staggered and fell, and as she lost the hold on her werewolf form, she shifted to human again.
The Nazi's teeth drew back from his lips in an ugly sneer, and he aimed the rifle at Cori.
Peter forgot everything. Forgot his fears, his doubts, his worries, his fatigue, all of it. He threw everything he was into Aslan's paws, and slammed a lid over his hesitation. A roar surged up through him, part his own voice, and he could have sworn, part Lion. He raised his sword and charged.
Rhindon struck true, a clean blow through the Nazi's back. The man crumpled on top of Cori. Peter dropped to his knees and shoved the dead man off her. "Cori, Cori!"
She grunted. "Healing ... some. The shift ... it helps," she whispered, but blood dribbled from her lips. She coughed and sucked in two, three, four breaths.
Fighting for calm, Peter pulled up the chain mail to reveal a jagged, bleeding wound in his wife's belly. The sight of so much blood brought it home. He pressed a trembling hand over the wound, and the blood warmed his chilled fingers. "No," he whispered.
Her lids fluttered half-closed ... then her eyes opened wide again and focused on something over his shoulder. A growl gurgled up from her throat.
Peter lunged around and took down the two minoboars stalking him before they even got the chance to attack. "Griffin!" he screamed, then slammed Rhindon's point into the trampled snow. He gathered Cori into his arms and stood.
"I will ... be fine," Cori gasped out. "Let me stay."
A pale-feathered griffin landed before them. Peter hurried to push Cori onto its back. "The castle. Hurry! Get her to Susan!"
The beast swooped off with hardly a pause, leaving Peter standing there, staring after them, with his wife's blood on his shaking hands.
- # -
Dragons, being magical, were able to do many things Edmund had never considered, but now found dead useful. Among them, the ability to slow or speed time for their own purposes, so that while others never recognized the change, it enabled the beasts to travel anywhere in a matter of minutes. This, he learned, was partly responsible for the way time never ran as parallel or consistently in Narnia as that in other worlds. They reached the coast of Narnia almost as soon as Van had asked the dragon to get there.
He heard the cannons even before they got close enough to see the flash of artillery fire. The two Selbarani ships and The Phoenix were side-on with four Calormene corsairs, and firing rapid volleys. "This is going to get messy," Van muttered.
"Sssssure you want to land in that?" the dragon chuckled, still speeding toward the ships with Arrow and Quill riding the wake of his wind.
"Feel free to stick around for dinner, dragon," Van snapped. "Just remember which ones are on our side."
"Maddoken," the dragon rumbled.
"What?"
"Figure you ssssshould know at leassssst my name before you kill yourssssself for thisssss."
As they approached The Phoenix, Van slid down the dragon's side until he dangled in midair by the beast's claw. "Maybe I've finally got something worth dying for."
Edmund swung down and the dragon caught him in his other claw. "Ready?" he called as they approached The Phoenix. Crew of all the ships had noticed them now. Some ran for catapults. The dragon drifted over The Phoenix. "Now!" Ed shouted.
Van dropped safely away and slipped down a sail, where he caught a bit of rigging and slid to a stop. But at that moment, a volley of fireballs soared through the air at the dragon's head, forcing him to turn aside. Edmund swung wildly and plummeted through the air over open water. He gasped out a breath and his stomach plunged as he fell.
A cloud of leaves rushed upward and solidified into a mass of vines. Edmund collided with the makeshift slide and skidded down to the rigging of The Phoenix.
The vines reformed into Asha, clinging to the shrouds beside him. "Hi, beautiful," Ed grinned.
She flashed a return smile. Together, they rushed down the netting and dropped to the deck of The Phoenix.
The minotaur who was second-in-command aboard the ship spotted him. "Now that's an entrance what I ain't seen yet."
"Get ready. The Witch will be here any minute," Ed said. All around them, crew were rushing back and forth to defend the ship.
Van dropped to the deck a few meters away. "I thought the dragon could outrun her."
"She has the Dreadken with her, Van. Don't forget they have magic other than fear-spells. They'll speed up that ship, now they've got something to rush to."
"Edmund!" Lucy rushed across the deck and collided with him in a hug. Then she whirled and found Van standing behind her. She took one running step and stopped, her face alight with desperate relief, her arms half up as if to hug him also. Her face went red.
Ed spied the stricken look on Van's face—the worry—and then he realized what—who—his first mate had been talking about when he mentioned something worth dying for. Somewhere among the pounding of cannons and the madness of fighting the Witch's forces, Vandelar had fallen in love with Lucy.
Ed smiled, wondering. "Everyone as you were." He nodded to Asha, who nodded back and returned to her ship in a whirl of leaves. Edmund broke into a jog toward the cook's supply closet. The time had come to fulfill his promise to Aslan.
As he passed Lucy, he leaned in close to her ear. "Take a few minutes, sister. There are things more important than war."