Apologies for the delay in posting; midterms are hell incarnate. Okay, I'm dramatic, but they do suck. Anyway, here's the next chapter; it is a bit of a filler chapter though it does provide some information which will be important later on. I still don't own Narnia.
"Peter?" Peter looked over at his sister's timid question. They were seated around the campfire and everyone seemed terribly nervous. Lucy's eyes looked large and frightened in the firelight and Edmund, who was sitting close enough to the flames that his cloak was in danger of catching fire, had his head lowered so that the shadows hid both his expression and the dark bruise that covered the left side of his face. Peter was infinitely grateful for the shadows; he could almost imagine they were back at Cair Paravel, safe and warm beside the fireplace as long as he could not see the proof of Edmund's close call earlier that day.
"Peter?" Lucy repeated more insistently tugging at his sleeve.
"Hmm? Oh, sorry Lu, I was just thinking. What is it?" He tried to smile reassuringly but felt that it seemed rather forced.
"Do you think we should go back? If these giants who invited us are anything like the ones who attacked us earlier…" her voice trailed into silence but Peter knew very well what she meant. If these giants are the same sort then we will all be dead.
"They aren't," Edmund stated quietly from the other side of the fire. "The Ettinsmoor giants are a very different type from those of Harfang, who invited us. The Ettins are largely unintelligent and brutish; the giants of Harfang are at the very least intelligent. That is no guarantee of virtue, but at least if they try to kill us it won't be with rocks and trees. We should be able to outwit them more easily than we could best them in battle." Peter and Lucy both stared at him in amazement and Edmund, sensing their gazes looked up and shrugged. "What? I've been talking with Metelus; it is my duty to know these things."
"Then what is your council?" Peter asked gravely. "Should we carry on with our journey or turn back and send our apologies on to Harfang?"
Edmund looked rather shocked at the question. "I-That's not my decision, Peter, you're the High King."
"And you are the one who actually bothers to learn about places before we visit them. I trust your judgement, Ed." Peter thought he saw Edmund's pale face flush slightly, but he could not be sure if it was with pride or embarrassment.
"I think we should go on. By all accounts these giants are a proud folk, and if we turn back now and refuse their invitation they are more likely to become troublesome. I don't see how we can turn back now."
Peter nodded. "Then it seems we must go on and face the adventure Aslan has in store for us."
Lucy nodded, a trifle grimly, though her eyes were still frightened. "I really am sorry though, about putting myself in danger and making you save me, Edmund. I never thought they would be hostile by nature." Her chin shook as she held back tears. Edmund put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.
"Lucy, really, it's alright. It was brave of you to try talking to them, but in future, maybe avoid confronting things ten times your size?"
Lucy nodded shakily and laughed. "I will do my best."
Peter shivered and shifted closer to the fire, suddenly chilled by the thought of how close he had come to losing them both. And I couldn't do anything to help. I would have been too slow.
A few large snowflakes drifted down from the leaden sky and the fire hissed as they melted. Peter was unsurprised when Edmund stood with a mumbled goodnight and disappeared into the tent the brothers shared. Lucy frowned after him, forehead creased in worry.
"Do you think he'll be alright?"
Peter found himself wishing that Susan were with them. She would be able to reassure Lucy while calming his own fears; she might even be able to help Edmund, somehow, she always seemed able to comfort him. Peter felt rather unequal to the task himself, but he forced a smile and hoped Lucy would not notice the worry in his own eyes.
"I'm sure he will be, Lu. Try to get some sleep and don't worry too much; I'll look after Edmund." If only he would make it slightly less difficult, he added silently.
Looking after Edmund, as it turned out, was far less difficult than Peter had anticipated. He felt a moment of panic when he entered the tent and found Edmund's bedroll empty. A moment later he smiled; Edmund was curled up on Peter's bed, buried so far beneath the blankets that all Peter could see of him was his unruly dark hair. He blew out the candle and slipped under the blankets, his smile widening as Edmund shifted unconsciously closer to him. Sleep well brother, may Aslan guard your dreams.
Music, hauntingly beautiful and heartrendingly sad, woke him. It was the hour before dawn again and the air was bitingly cold. His boots crunched on a thin layer of snow and frost when he stepped outside. The sentries were asleep, leaning against tents or their weapons, their heads drooping against their chests. Even the dogs were silent, curled into mounds of gently breathing fur with their paws tucked over their noses.
Ordinarily Peter would have scolded the guards for sleeping and roused the camp, but the gentle, dreamlike quality of the music kept him from feeling the alarm the circumstances would generally have caused him. He stumbled past the sleeping guards in a daze, scarcely stopping to wonder at their stillness. The music pulled him forward, out onto the still and snowy moor.
A flash of green caught his eye; the Lady with the harp! He opened his mouth to call out to her, quickened his steps to catch her; a hand fell on his shoulder and he started, jolted back to full awareness by the sudden contact. He turned, striking out blindly on instinct borne of years training under Orieus.
Edmund stumbled back in surprise, barely avoiding being knocked over by Peter's wildly thrown punch. "Peter! It's me!"
Peter blinked, confused and suddenly freezing. "Ed? What the blazes am I doing out here?"
His brother frowned, worry clearly overcoming his annoyance at almost being punched. "I would ask you the same thing. Are you taking up sleep walking now?"
There was something on the edge of his memory, something he couldn't quite grasp, and every time he tried it slipped further away. "I don't know. I have the strangest feeling that I wasn't asleep."
Edmund's scowl deepened. "You might not have been but everyone else was. We ought to send the lot of them home in disgrace for letting their High King go wandering out of camp while they slept instead of guarding."
"Everyone is asleep?" That sounded vaguely familiar and a sudden image of two fauns leaning against a tent with their chins resting against their chests flashed through Peter's memory.
"Yes, although I rather wonder if it isn't entirely their fault. It all seems rather convenient, doesn't it? All the guards fall asleep and you go wandering off onto the moor alone?" He shivered and pulled his cloak closer around his shoulders. "We should go back and try to wake them; if this was a trap it might still be dangerous."
Peter nodded, still dazed, and followed his brother back across the frozen moor. Whatever had happened it made little sense; no matter how hard he thought about it he could not remember why he had wandered out onto the moor. It was absurd to think he had been sleepwalking; Peter knew he had been perfectly aware of his surroundings, but he could not remember how or why he knew that.
The guards were still asleep when they reached the camp but the Dogs began to stir as they approached and in a moment, they were on their paws, yawning and wagging their tails. The rest of the camp was soon roused and all were equally ashamed of their lapse in duty. No one could quite remember falling asleep, but Trebonius thought he recalled hearing a strange, haunting strain of music. In fact, that was the last thing he could remember before an irate Edmund shook him awake.
"Music?" Edmund asked sharply, and Peter thought that too sounded familiar; the memory hovered, just out of reach.
"Yes, your majesty." The faun shifted his hooves and stared at the ground. "I didn't mean to sleep, truly, I didn't. I beg your forgiveness, your majesties; I will return to Cair Paravel and report my mistake to General Orieus at once," he added miserably.
Edmund looked rather inclined to agree with him, but Peter shook his head. "No matter, Captain; no harm was done and we trust you will keep better watch in future. Tell the rest of your company the same if you would." Trebonius nodded gratefully and hurried away, calling loudly to the rest of his guards as he went.
Edmund kicked at the ground crossly. "Really Peter, that's going rather easy on them, don't you think? If you'd stumbled upon a giant you could have been killed while that lot slept."
"But I didn't," Peter reasoned with a smile. "Besides, luckily for me you seem immune to whatever put everyone else to sleep."
"Luckily," Edmund muttered, glaring at the ground. "The sooner we get off this moor the better; there is some enchantment over this place."
Late in the afternoon they came to a great, arching bridge built across a gorge and after crossing it found a giant's road, paved with huge slabs of stone the size of wagons, winding away and upwards. It was obvious that neither the bridge nor the road could have been built by the brutish giants of Ettinsmoor and the spirits of everyone in the party lifted greatly at the sign of civilisation.
Lucy seemed to forget her fright of the day before and chatted happily with the guards; brightening the dull day with her merry laughter. Edmund, though still appearing weary and concerned for Peter, seemed to cheer slightly at the prospect of soon reaching somewhere out of the cold and the wind. Peter found himself in something of a daze as they traveled; he wished he could remember why he wandered out of camp; he wished he knew why he felt such a strange sense of longing when he thought of it, but no explanation presented itself. His thoughts wandered back to the Lady they had met and he wondered, not for the first or last time, when he would see her again. It did not seem strange to him how quickly she had become a part of his thoughts after a single meeting. If the thought had occurred to him he might have been suspicious and considered more carefully how his nightly wanderings began after they met the Lady. As it was he did not think of it.
That night Peter found, much to his annoyance if not surprise, that Edmund insisted on sitting at the entrance to their tent as a self-appointed guard. He tossed and turned this way and that, but sleep eluded him. At last he gave up and joined Edmund in his silent vigil.
"The whole point of me staying awake and keeping watch is so that you can sleep," Edmund remarked as he watched the shifting shadows on the side of the tent.
"Listening to your teeth chatter isn't very conducive to sleep," Peter said with a smile, hoping the attempt at humour would lighten the mood.
Edmund snorted in amusement. "At least you won't go wandering off and fall into the gorge."
They sat in silence, watching the shadow of the candle flame dance against the canvas. Peter shifted closer to his brother and wrapped an extra blanket around his thin shoulders, ignoring the glare directed at him as he did so.
"You're worse than Susan," Edmund growled, but Peter did not miss the hint of a smile that tugged at his mouth.
"Speaking of our dear sister, what did she tell you when we left Cair Paravel? It seemed to upset you." For a moment Peter thought Edmund would not answer, then he sighed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Nothing much, just to make sure that in watching your back and looking after Lucy I didn't forget to think of my own safety. She never seems to understand why I must put my safety last."
Peter nodded thoughtfully. "You know we've all forgiven you Ed, maybe you should try forgiving yourself."
Edmund shook his head sharply and pulled the blankets higher, half covering his face. Peter sighed and let him be; it was clear Edmund deemed the conversation over. Neither slept, but their silent vigil seemed to yield results, for no music called to Peter and when dawn came the guards were standing attentively at their posts, eyes wide open and weapons ready in their hands.
A little short and maybe slightly boring, but the action picks up next chapter with our company arriving at the giant's city; yes it is Harfang. To those of you who already knew that, well done! If you have a minute to drop me a review it would be much appreciated and many thanks to those of you who have already reviewed! You all make my days brighter!
Cheers,
A