AN: I'm going to be completely honest with you readers, I'm not sure what I think of this chapter. I worked really hard on it and it feels like it took me for-ev-er to write (I've been having a long past few days and so everything feels kinda dragged out anyway, but I dunno). Anywho, it's um a tad rougher/darker than my chapters generally tend to be, but I couldn't see any way of making it lighter and still keeping things going the way I needed them to for story-flow sake...it's not too bad, though, I promise, just keep in mind that this is rated T for a reason and you should be just fine. This chapter was going to have a whole other part to it at the end that I declined to write in after all because thinking it over I feel that intended scene will be better-fitting in the start of the next chapter instead of tacking it onto this one; it also gives me more time to plan it out instead of it just being a passing add on. Well, without any further ado, here's chapter 22...
Although Gael did not do any actual fighting in the raid against the slave traders in Narrowhaven (and thank heavens, she was, after all, only a little girl) she did play a major part. For it was she who had unwittingly told Farder Coram what he needed to let John Faa know. The child, having been badly frightened by those horrid kidnappers hadn't known she was saying anything useful, she was simply blurting out her whole traumatized story. But it was this story that gave them clues as to which alleys and lanes and locations of Narrowhaven the slave trade was currently based in; that coupled with a few other spy sources (Gyptians were never short on spies of their own race-such things were heavily embedded within their blood and culture, it seemed) and the map Rhince had given to Emeth and the others before-hand, led them all right to where they needed to be.
The raid was soon in full swing. Upon realizing the area was under attack, many of the slaves panicked and hid, or else tried to make a run for it, but a few of them-the braver, tougher ones-began to fight, too. They caught on rather quickly that if these strange Gyptians won, they might be released from slavery. A few of them were afraid that the Gyptians would then take them and that it things would be no better for them in the end than it would have been if they'd been sold, but feeling as if they had to do something, finally decided that they'd cross that bridge when they got to it. They might make pleas, they thought. They could perhaps come to an agreement of some kind, a bargain. And besides, it was easier to get the government involved when it was a Gyptian that kidnapped a person than otherwise.
For all their being caught unawares, however, the slave-traders (and even some of the more brutish and less respectable-looking customers) fought back hard. It wasn't long at all before John Faa had to signal the archers to begin shooting their arrows in earnest. He hadn't wanted to-not so quickly, what with all those women and children around. But some of the Gyptians not currently engaged in direct combat were working hard to shield the women and children and those of the enslaved men who were both too old to fight and too weary to run off. As long as the archers were not careless and there were no real accidents, things might be fine in the end. There did not seem to be any other way around it.
More arrows than John Faa had counted on there being appeared, falling from the sky in ever increasing amounts, and for one horrible moment he-and a few of his men as well-thought that the slavers had some sort of re-enforcements backing them up, trying to out-do their own archers. Only, if this was the case, they couldn't be very skilled. All of the arrows seemed to strike only the slavers and those fighting on their side. There was no logical reason why this would be so unless whatever this unseen source was was helping them, not their enemy.
Looking up after he managed to block a blow from one of the slavers with his sword, Peter was among the first to see these archers. They rode upon cloud-pine branches.
"Fairies!" exclaimed a young female belonging to their own archers (it turned out to be Lucy).
Lyra, running in the dead-centre of the spear-carriers, holding her spear directly out in front of her, looked up and saw that this was indeed the case.
Fairies were flying above them, swarming and swooping down into the battle.
I wonder, thought John Faa, if one of these is Farder Coram's wife, Serafina Pekkala.
Also, he found himself wondering how they had all come to his aid so suddenly, so readily, knowing exactly where they were needed.
Looking to his left, Lord Faa saw a silver-white falcon letting out a screechy whistle. His crow-dæmon sensed that this stunning falcon, watching the fight from his perch on a wooden crate propped against a partially broken fence, was not an ordinary bird but rather someone's dæmon; and so he put two and two together with what Farder Coram had told him and gathered that she belonged to the Star Consul. It was she, it seemed, that had helped lead the fairies here. They had their own ways of knowing, but they'd needed some assistance to get there quickly enough. And, thankfully, they had gotten just that.
The man Peter was fighting suddenly tricked him, swinging his sword so that he thought the slaver was trying to slash at his legs when really he was using it as a sort of trip-wire to knock him down onto his back.
It would be easier to dispatch this unwanted fighter, obviously on the side of the Gyptians though he wasn't one himself, if he were lying flat on the ground, sore, and unable to move for a couple of seconds.
Sure enough, unsuspecting, Peter found himself on his back, looking up at the slaver who raised his sword to finish him off.
There were still arrows falling from the sky; if he was very lucky, maybe one would hit his opponent before the sword came plummeting down into his chest. He couldn't depend on that happening by chance entirely, however, so he did the only thing he could have reasonably done, dangerous though it was. He began rolling towards where the most arrows were raining from, under the somewhat-flimsy defense that the slaver's back would serve as something of a human shield for him. If the man really was stupid enough to swoop down with all those arrows flying, just to kill him, then he certainly deserved what was coming to him in that case.
But supposing one of the fairies' arrows hit him-Peter-by mistake? Well, he would have to risk that.
And he did.
Ignoring the pain in his one of his wrists, small pieces of pebble having dug into it, causing a sharp, stinging sort of pain, he kept twisting his body to the side.
It came to a point when he couldn't turn anymore. Peter could simply not budge a single inch more. It wasn't soreness that was stopping him, he realized after a second of confusion, it was that one of his sides was now pressed against the back of a wide stage made of pine-wood scraps and cheap crate-lids (this was where the men managing the slave-bidding had been standing before the Gyptians fell upon them so suddenly). There was no where else to go. He couldn't stand up-there wasn't enough space. He couldn't turn either way, for the stage blocked one side while his opponent blocked the other.
He wondered for a passing split-second if his opponent had noticed that he didn't have a dæmon. Then again, the man might just assume his dæmon was somewhere amongst the sea of others clawing and fighting in whatever distance they could get from their masters and mistresses. Everything was confusion, and flashing, and bursting of golden Dust as death spread and dæmons dispersed into naught, and heat, and sticky sweat.
Not too far off, Lord Asriel was using his whip with as much force as he must have when he'd fought against this same slave trade years before. But Peter couldn't depend on a rescue from him or Stelmaria-who was currently roaring and swatting her powerful white paws at a German Shepard dæmon-as they were too busy and too far away. They'd never reach him in time; and all the others were further still from his spot. Most had cleverly kept out the way of the arrows, whereas Peter, having little choice, was deep in that direction, unable to leave it now.
Suddenly, without warning, a cloud-pine branch lowered itself. There appeared to be, not one fairy, but two, riding on it; and one of them had a big doggish-looking dæmon with her. This 'dog' was a great deal too massive for the size of the branch in itself, though it could easily bear his weight all the same.
The dog dæmon-if it was a dog-was released from his mistress's tight grip on his fur, and he leaped off of the now low-hovering branch and pinned down the growling, medium-sized, gorilla dæmon belonging to the man about to run Peter through with his sword.
Then the smaller of the two fairy-women, presumably the one who's dæmon was now tearing mercilessly at the gorilla, biting and gnawing as if there were no tomorrow, slid off of the branch so that she stood with her back to the slaver but was still directly between him and Peter.
The man let out an angry yell that did not contain any actual words, and it became clear that he was still trying to bring his sword down despite the pain he was feeling through his dæmon.
Peter was no longer even thinking about his opponent, or even the raid he was in the middle of, instead he gazed up into the 'fairy's' face, an amazed smile coming onto his own. It wasn't a fairy after all, and her dæmon was no dog-it was a wolf; Maugrim. This was Susan, dressed in elegant fairy-garb and carrying a quiver of arrows on her back. The fairy who's branch they'd gotten a ride on was none other than Serafina Pekkala Le Fay.
The slaver lurched forward. Susan, who was ready for him, had a single arrow in her right hand. She thrust it backwards into his stomach and his dæmon went out like a light. Maugrim found himself standing in a pile of blood-drops and golden Dust. Hastily, he shook the mess out of his fur and took a deep breath.
"Susan!" Peter exclaimed, overjoyed.
"Come on," she said as he finally managed to scramble to his feet with a little help from Maugrim's nose. "We've got a raid to finish."
To reassure himself that he was not simply hallucinating, that Susan really was there, fighting beside him, Peter peered over the side of his shoulder at her whenever he felt it was safe to risk it. Or else maybe he was so thrilled to be near his wife again that he couldn't stop looking at her. In all likelihood, it was both.
Overhead, one fairy lost her balance when the servant of a customer of the slave-trade hurled a spear at her while she was busy shooting arrows down upon about six or seven men trying to corner John Faa and Lord Asriel against the back of a wall.
The fairy teetered, struggling to get a better grasp of her cloud-pine branch; but she couldn't manage it and she fell. She was the only fairy to fall in the raid. It was, after all, comparatively on a very small scale when thought of alongside the much larger battles these same fairies had taken part in. Truly, it was rather shocking that any of them fell to begin with, even so much as one.
Thankfully the fall was not anything close to fatal. And no sooner had she taken her rough tumble than Serafina Pekkala and another fairy charged at the servant so that no one ever heard anything from him again.
However, the spear carriers (including Lyra) and two swordsmen (one of which happened to be Edmund) were clever enough to discern that the dead servant had not acted without orders; he had to have gotten direction and command from someone else.
Despite the wildness and savage brutality all around them, pressing in close, they were also able to determine that the customer who was the dead servant's master was the dark-faced nobleman dressed in extravagantly bright silken robes worn over his paper-thin white doublet underneath with a small, thoroughly unattractive, dæmon riding on his left shoulder.
Lyra's spear nearly pierced the nobleman's side, but he turned round to face her before she could make contact properly and his dæmon's hideous eyes flashed angrily at Pantalaimon who was snarling and grimacing at the same time, upon realizing the dæmon's wrenched form was nothing more than a scorpion.
No harm came to Lyra and Pan, though. Edmund's sword clanged against the nobleman's before he could even think about threatening the Silvertongue girl and her white ermine with it.
As he fought the man, who proved skilled at swordplay yet undoubtedly prissy in regards to it at the same time, Edmund sensed that something was seriously wrong; Ella was making this horrified sound with her throat and trying to swoop near the nobleman's shoulder so as to get at the scorpion with her beak, even when it wasn't exactly necessary to her human's victory.
This was very odd, and Edmund kept wondering what it was his dæmon was trying to warn him of and trying to destroy. It was mere seconds after his Eleanor Glimfeather had taken another-ultimately fruitless-dive at the scorpion that Edmund's eyes met those of the nobleman's.
They had known each other once a very long while back and their hatred had only been masked by a thin veil of courtesy as this horrid man had been betrothed to his sister at the time.
"Lord Rabadash," he muttered, mostly to himself, through gritted teeth.
"Well, well, well." Lord Rabadash recognized him now. "If it isn't my brother-in-law."
Edmund wielded his sword as if he intended to hack Lord Rabadash's head off right then and there.
Their swords met again.
Lord Rabadash was a stupid, lustful, spoiled, arrogant, moronic ass, but he had been trained well enough in swordsmanship to know not to willingly let someone's sword that close to your head without fighting back.
"I am not your brother-in-law."
"Not yet."
"It was years ago," said Edmund, pushing in the steel of the sword so that if they went on for much longer with the way they were fighting it was going to be more of a wrestle with sharp steel held out in front of them as their only defenses. "Get over it already. My sister never loved you, and she's happily married to someone else."
"Not legally, I've heard," sneered Rabadash. "Hardly surprising; that daughter of a dog always was a most dreadful slut."
"You son of a-" Edmund's dark eyes glinted at him with unrepressed out-rage so passionate and defensive that any man with a lick of sense would have felt a shiver of fear at it; a person with an expression like that on their face might do anything-absolutely anything!
"Ah-ah-ah," Rabadash cut him off. "I wouldn't finish that sentence if I were you." He never had had any sense to begin with.
The near-wrestling match was over and they were back to proper (while obviously more vengeful than average) broadsword fighting.
"If you were me," said Edmund over the clinking of their swords, "I would be such a despicable idiot."
"Shut up, criminal." Apparently Lord Rabadash was aware that Edmund was a wanted man now. Whether he knew he was an alethiometrist, or if he even knew anything at all about alethiometrists to begin with was uncertain and a bit doubtful, but he knew from hear-say that Edmund was not welcome in a great number of places these days. It was common knowledge that the boy who used to be a Coulter was now a traitor to the Ruling Powers.
"Why don't we let our swords do the talking here on in?" Edmund suggested, his teeth gritted again-and bared.
Before Rabadash could make any reply there was a surprisingly clear-sounding twang, as if from reasonably near-by, and an arrow came flying towards the dark nobleman.
Edmund was clever enough to figure out something a panicked Rabadash wouldn't have taken note of. The arrow wasn't being shot at him; it was being shot at his dæmon. It was as if the archer had intended to shoot the little scorpion clean off his master's shoulder. This was not necessarily to kill him, although that wouldn't exactly have been a tragic outcome in the least, but to stun him long enough to give Edmund the advantage.
Glimpsing quickly over his shoulder, he thought it was Susan, but Ella told him his sister was fighting close-by her husband, not near to them at all. The only archer close enough to have shot the arrow and to be the girl he'd seen was Lucy Pevensie. That made sense, since he'd thought there was a boy a little ways behind her; probably Billy Costa.
Looking back at Rabadash, he laughed aloud. The nobleman had gotten the sleeve of his billowy silken robe pinned to the alley wall behind them by Lucy's arrow.
"You coward!" screeched Lord Rabadash. "Take this arrow off of my garments. Let me down at once. Fight me without cheating! Fight me like a man!"
"Certainly-" Edmund began, but was stopped by his dæmon.
"He's not worth it, Ed," whispered Ella. "Let's just leave him."
Ella was right. Lord Rabadash wasn't worthy of anything. This horrible man had pursued Susan and burned down Gyptian ships, and he had had every intent of killing Peter back at Jordan College for no other reason than the fact that Susan loved him and he was jealous of that. Now he could whine and thrash about all he wanted and Edmund would not help him down, would not give him another chance at a so-called fair fight.
Stay there for now, thought Edmund, with a cutting glance at Rabadash and his pathetic attempts to get himself loose (eventually he would think to remove the arrow itself, but by then Edmund would be fighting in some other part of the raid), take that as punishment for daring to speak of my sister in a vulgar manner.
Susan had joined the archers behind Lucy now and was fighting with Trumpkin on one side of her, Billy Costa on the other; Serafina Pekkala opposite to him. Rhince and Drinian had crossbows well-aimed.
Peter and most of the other swordsmen were still ready to fight, if the need had arisen, but by this point those they were fighting against were either dead or else surrendered for the majority. Disappointingly, however, none of them knew-or were willing to admit they knew-anything about Bolvangar, despite the threats of the archers and their never-ending arrows.
Lord John Faa did take one slaver into custody, yet this proved unhelpful as the captive somehow succeeded in committing suicide before he even made it to the Dawn Treader.
"See, Peter?" said Edmund when Peter stood at his side helping Rhince pile up the surrendered swords. "I told you Lucy would be fine."
Peter looked over to where Lucy stood with the other archers-some Gyptians, others fairies-and sighed a sigh of deep relief. "I know she's all right-I knew all along she was safe enough-but I just had this knot in my stomach at the thought of…"
"I know." Edmund put a hand on his brother-in-law's shoulder.
He knew it had to be hard for Peter, having looked after Lucy since she was a baby and now seeing her in combat. It was hard even for he himself, for no other reason than that he was in love with her and would rather die a thousand deaths than see a so much as a hair's breath of a wound on her. Still, he understood that Lucy was strong, maybe even in ways her elder brother couldn't yet accept; no defenseless, lily-livered girl would have worked so diligently and bravely as an alethiometrist's assistant. And there were moments when there was simply no stopping the wonder that was Lucy Pevensie from fighting for what she believed in. That was just that, no way around it.
"I say," said Peter suddenly, crinkling his brow and squinting at the archers. "Where's Susan?"
Edmund blinked at him. "I thought she was with you." He twisted his neck and exchanged a puzzled expression with Ella. Then, turning back to Peter, "Wasn't she fighting at your side since shortly after she turned up with the fairies?"
"She was," Peter explained, "until she re-joined the archers as back-up. Didn't you see her?"
"No," said Edmund. "I saw Lucy…but not Susan, I don't think."
"Susan…she's the dark-haired one with the wolf dæmon, right?" asked Rhince, over-hearing.
"Yes," Peter told him.
"I saw her…I was fighting with a crossbow close by."
"When was the last time?" Edmund blurted out, beginning to get something of a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach without being sure why.
"Before…" said Rhince vaguely, struggling to recall. "She was talking to…Billy…no, Tony, I think."
"Billy and Tony are both with Lord John Faa," Peter noticed. "I can see them…Susan's not there."
"She's probably just talking to some of the fairies," Rhince suggested, shrugging at his meerkat-dæmon who was silently communicating to him that Ella was uneasy and she wasn't sure why.
"Edmund!" Ella flapped her wings so wildly that she lost five feathers at once and nearly smacked her human in the face accidentally besides.
"What is it?" said Edmund, his voice strained.
"Look at the wall…"
"What wall?"
"The one Rabadash was stuck to!" she squawked impatiently.
Edmund looked; Rabadash was gone. It had only been one arrow, there was no reason Rabadash shouldn't have gotten free by now. But that he should be free, unaccounted for, at the very same moment that Peter could not find Susan…that made Edmund's face go whiter than Ella's fallen feathers. No heated blood from the battle was still within him, all he felt in his veins was ice.
"Rabadash?" repeated Peter, wondering if-and hoping-he'd heard Edmund's dæmon wrong. "Not the same Lord Rabadash who Susan was going to marry before she ran away to Jordan?"
"Peter," snapped Edmund, with pardonable sharpness, folding his arms across his chest, "exactly how many 'Rabadashs' have you ever heard of?"
"Oh, dear God…I have to find her…now…" Peter took off.
Edmund was right to worry. His instinct and his dæmon's fear at realizing Rabadash and Susan were both missing at the same time were more than mere over-protective twinges of worry.
While Peter had gone off to find her, Edmund hastily began asking everybody within range if anyone had captured Rabadash. This was wishful thinking…there was no doubt about it…his lordship was not a man to take surrender quietly, if someone had caught him they surely wound have heard his shrill whining peppered with unwarranted threats by now. But there were so many swords…maybe just one of the Gyptians…could have…no, there was no chance of that. The more Edmund looked around, the more he realized the only chance was that Peter would find Susan quickly enough. His one condolence was that nearly everyone was looking for her in earnest now-including the fairies. If Rabadash had perhaps seen her and taken her somewhere without notice, so long as they were still anywhere within Narrowhaven boundaries, he could not possibly get very far.
"What if the officials get involved and take Lord Rabadash's part over the Gyptians?" Ella voiced one of Edmund's worst fears regarding the matter.
"They won't." But he didn't really believe that and Ella knew it. "They won't. Really."
Meanwhile, Susan had her back pressed against a tree in some dratted unknown park in Narrowhaven. All she knew for sure was that it wasn't far from where the raid had been. Rabadash, who'd always had servants to carry him about in a litter when his feet 'got weary' (heaven forbid he should sport a blister!) or to attend to his needs when he wasn't fighting in some quarrelsome bully-fest, couldn't run a great distance after all that energy zapped from him during the raid. And he had a stinging cut on one elbow as well.
"You dare come near me," Susan warned the dark, leering nobleman, "and I swear you will regret it."
Maugrim growled at the scorpion. "And I'll kill you, don't think I won't."
She had been beyond horrified to feel a hand clamp over her mouth when she'd stepped away from the archers at what seemed to be the end of the raid to relieve herself. Susan strongly disliked the very idea of lifting her skirts and peeing out-of-doors; it was a vulgar, unladylike practice, and she knew her younger self would have been utterly disgusted if she'd known that one day she would have to even consider such a thing. But, then, she sort of hated her younger self-that foolish, vain girl who had been afraid of her mother and unwilling to stand up for what she believed in and who she truly loved. Besides, the fairies may have had special powers and talents, but the idea of asking one if it was possible to create some sort of fairy chamber pot was even more embarrassing than quietly sneaking away and crouching. Maugrim had vowed to keep look-out, anyway.
Unfortunately they hadn't realized there was safety in numbers. How were they supposed to have known that Rabadash was there-Edmund had had no chance to warn them. If she hadn't gone off, he wouldn't have even noticed her standing with the fairies. Because of her dark hair and the clothing she had on, she looked-from a distance when standing amongst the archers-very much like the fairies mingling with the Gyptians. The second she'd wandered off, however, he'd seen her and recognized her.
Then, from the one way Maugrim wasn't looking, directly behind them, Rabadash had snatched her.
Maugrim had been, from the very start, trying to grap up the scorpion in his mouth and shake him until his master was wrought with dizziness in the same way he had the night Susan had meant to leave him-and the world-and end it all, but unlike last time, Rabadash's dæmon knew what to expect and stung far more sharply than before. She crawled over Maugrim's shaggy fur and buried herself within it at the worst moments so that he could not tear her out without causing pain and injury to himself.
Now, pressed against the tree, Susan was caught between the urge to vomit and the urge to faint. She mustn't faint, for if she did he could just carry her off and would be at her the second she came back into consciousness. And vomiting didn't always come for the asking.
"You needn't resist so," cooed Rabadash, leaning forward and attempting to slip an arm around her waist as she struggled and pulled as far back as the tree would let her. "You'll need to learn a sharp lesson, O beautiful one, but you don't have to feel bad about it…you don't have to worry about that man you've been with…"
"That man," said Susan tersely, "is my husband." She reached up to smack him across the face, but he grabbed her wrist and twisted until she had to bite her lip to keep from screaming out in pain.
He dropped her throbbing wrist but continued leaning even more aggressively so that she couldn't get away. "You're more mine than his, you know."
"You are mad," Susan told him flatly. "Let me go at once!" She wished her weapons were not still all at the place she had tried to relieve herself at. An arrow or a knife at this moment would have been a God-send.
Maugrim was growling and barking, tearing his teeth at the spots the scorpion went right on stinging, not caring if he only caused himself more pain-he had to get rid of her, he had to.
"Who do you think any sensible member of society is going to believe?" He smirked at her, his face so close to hers that she could feel and smell his breath, sharp with something like mint but stronger and less pleasant, each time he so much as exhaled. "Me, legally betrothed to you, or that unnatural dæmonless man who ought to be in a freak-show of some sort?"
"It was years ago!" Susan huffed, almost too angry now to feel as fearful as she had been a few moments before.
"So?" Rabadash's brow went up uncaringly. "I'll take you back, all is forgiven. You don't know how much I've missed you. I looked everywhere…I even went to Jordan to fetch you…what was it, two or three years ago, I believe."
"I don't want you," Susan insisted vehemently.
"That really doesn't matter."
"I'm married," she reminded him, lifting up her left hand. "You've lost." She swiveled her head round to look for a rock or a broken branch she could use to hit him with.
"Oh, I know all about that…and I know it wasn't legal..." He said these words in a sing-songy way, and she sensed his scorpion, still stinging poor Maugrim, was laughing.
"Stop it!" She let out a scream as one of his hands started roughly rubbing the side of her neck. She tried to kick him, but every bone in her body felt sore from Maugrim's pain and she felt she could barely lift her aching legs.
"Don't worry, O delight of my eyes," he whispered. "Soon we'll have you reintroduced to society as a proper woman again…we'll keep your harlotry a secret…" Then, softer still yet far more threateningly, and with a much more suggestive expression on his face, "For right now, though, I'll enjoy having you with a bit of a barbarian edge…might be…interesting…"
"I'll give you interesting!" barked Maugrim, almost-but not quite-getting his teeth on that darned allusive scorpion.
"Interesting," repeated Rabadash. As he spoke, the word died off into an attempted kiss despite Susan's efforts to push him away.
"No!" She started weeping and shouting hysterically at the same time, losing her mind altogether as one of his hands started trying to force itself up the skirt of her dress. "No! No! Get off me!"
He did withdraw his hand, not in compliance with her wishes, rather, because he meant to cover her mouth. Her screams were already louder than he'd known any woman could scream, and would be such a pity to heard and interrupted.
Before his hand could clamp over her mouth as intended, a swift, strong pair of arms reached down from above, and someone up in the tree pulled her away from him, into the safety of the large, intertwined branches.
Susan didn't try to fight these arms; they were oddly familiar and meant her no harm.
When she actually saw him as he gently placed her as far in as he could manage, she almost started weeping all over again for sheer relief and joy; it was Peter.
"Shh, it's all right," he whispered, trying to console her. Maugrim was still down there, and he knew she was still in pain and that he would have to rescue the wolf or else pulling her up wouldn't have done any good, but he struggled to comfort her all the same.
She moaned softly, her eyes half-closing from her dæmon's suffering.
"Poor Susan," he said, preparing to leap down from the tree once he was certain she would not fall without his support; "it seems I'm making a habit of pulling you up into trees without warning."
Knowing it was a reference to how they'd met, Susan managed a half-smile.
"I'm going to take care of this," he promised her, his voice cracking with over-repressed emotion. "He's never going to come near you again-I'll make sure of it."
Suddenly it struck her that he wasn't just going to reach down and pull Maugrim up the way he had when she was thirteen and he'd rescued her from the Telmarine Gyptians she was fighting off.
"Peter," she tried, her voice faltering.
She didn't want him to get hurt. Her practical side was screaming out for him to forgo honour and all that rot so that they could just get away. He didn't have to be a hero; she didn't want an injured-or worse, dead-hero, she wanted to keep her living, breathing husband. No one would have thought any the less of him…but of course he wouldn't listen to her…he never did…
The next thing Rabadash knew, Peter had leapt down from the tree and was pointing a sword at his chest.
"Where did you come from?" Lord Rabadash demanded, sounding more sulky than he did angry.
"The sky," Maugrim grunted sarcastically, in between heavy, gasping breaths.
"You listen and you listen well," Peter growled, cutting straight to the chase. "If you ever try to put your hands on my wife again I will cut them off, understood?"
"Unholy freak of nature," spat Rabadash.
"Funny," said Peter, his facial muscles not budging so much as a half-inch, "I was about to say the same thing about you." He inhaled deeply. "Now, unless you want me to run you through, get your dirty rotten dæmon off of Maugrim this instant."
Rabadash had lost his own sword during the raid when he'd gotten pinned to the wall, but he still had a knife.
Disguising his smirk as a grimace, he said, "Fine, you win." The scorpion let go of Maugrim who, in turn, barreled over to Peter the same way a frightened, injured dog rushes to its owner at first sight and chance.
"Peter!" shouted Susan's voice as she dared to lean downwards through the branches to call out to him. "Watch out!"
Rabadash had raised his knife to stab him. The blade never came down onto Peter's back. Without warning, Rabadash's face drained and there was a puff of golden Dust where his scorpion had been. The now-dead lordship collapsed onto the ground. In the pile of unlit Dust that was once the scorpion, there was an arrow which Peter bent down to examine.
He knew who the arrow belonged to. "Lucy."
Sure enough, a trembling Lucy-holding a bow-and Reepicheep came into sight.
"We…we were trying to follow you, Peter," she admited, trying not to look at the dead body on the ground. "Reepicheep sensed Maugrim over here and then we saw…he was going to…I was only trying to stun his dæmon, he was just so small that…" She shuddered. "Ugh."
Reepicheep piped in, "Still, we've done the only thing we could do."
"Peter," said Susan, in a soft, reminiscent voice.
"Yes?"
"Aren't you going to help me down?"
Remembering, he softly said, "Yes, of course," and reached up, pulling her down gently into his arms.
"Thank you," she breathed weakly.
AN: Please review and tell me if you liked the chapter or not.