A/N: New chapter! I hope that everyone has had a great Christmas... I have, kinda, but I have mock exams after the break so I'm meant to be revising... Safe to say I've not done much of that :)) Thanks to optymalna for the review!
Annie wakes to a cold floor beneath her leaden limbs and an ache in her head. She groans and slowly pushes herself up on trembling wrists, to discover a folded jumper that her head had been resting on. Her hands have been untied. She looks around - sure enough, in the corner of the room, Edmund sits curled up, shivering. He is wearing a flimsy white shirt, his jumper curiously absent.
A wave of anger surges through her. She picks up the jumper and flings it towards the boy, who yelps and looks at her.
"What was that for?" He cries.
"You idiot." Annie hisses. For a few moments, she is overtaken by a coughing fit which shakes her entire body. Afterwards, she carries on weakly but with just the same amount of venom: "You brought us here for sweets. You betrayed the others for sweets."
He stares back at her, and quietly says: "It wasn't just the sweets. She was nice to me. She said she'd make me king."
Annie scoffs and looks away, shaking her head. With difficulty she begins to push herself towards the wall. "You still betrayed the others. Did you see? She sent her wolves after them. What's happening to them now?"
What is happening to them? Who knows what could have happened already? She thinks of the sharp claws and teeth, and then of Maisie's bright smile. She feels her eyes fill with tears, and chokes back a sob. Once more she coughs, her body folding in on itself, one hand flying to her mouth. When she takes it away, there is blood on her palm. She stares at it, a knot of fear in her stomach - then slowly, deliberately, closes her fist.
"How long was I asleep?" She whispers.
"I don't know." Edmund softly replies. "An hour, maybe?"
She coughs again.
"Annie? Are you all right now? I mean, you were scary then - you wouldn't wake up. What's wrong?"
"I don't know." Her voice is hoarse all of a sudden. She looks at him quickly, irritably. "Put your jumper back on, will you? You'll freeze."
There is quiet, then a ruffling sound as Edmund puts his jumper back on.
"There. Is that better?"
She doesn't answer and stares down at the ice before her.
He sighs. "I'm sorry. Really, I am."
Annie shakes as she tries to ignore the itch in her throat. "It doesn't really matter now, does it?"
The itch breaks through and she is pitched forward onto her hands, coughing violently over the ice. When the spasms abate and she opens her eyes, dark patches of red are spreading below her. Her throat stings.
"That's blood." Edmund says blankly.
"Yes." Annie voice rasps. She coughs weakly once more.
"You're sick." He looks at her, and he looks frightened.
"I know."
There is another silence, filled only by the mysterious creakings and shiftings of the castle above them, and the continuous drip from an icicle on the ceiling.
"There was someone else here." Edmund whispers. "In through there."
He points into the shadows. Annie squints and makes out a set of rough bars, dividing their cell from another. She can see the glow of something in there - chains?
"He was - a faun. He said he'd met Lucy and Phillip."
"Mr Tumnus." Annie realises. She peers back into the shadows.
Edmund slowly nods. "But the Queen took him away. He -" He swallows. "I don't think it's good. What happened to the faun. I think he's in trouble."
She shivers, and pushes herself back until she is leaning against the wall next to Edmund. She wraps her arms around her knees. "I'm scared."
Edmund breathes in, breathes out. "Me too."
Phillip used to like wolves. He used to feel sorry for the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, or the Three Little Pigs, and felt somehow as if they had been misrepresented, as if they were kindly creatures who had just been made into villains. He used to wear a furry cap over his head and run around on all fours and howl at the sky, and would smile at his siblings when they pretended to run away in fear, for they had misunderstood the point of his game. He wanted to be a wolf, and wolves wanted to be friendly, not frightening.
All of those imaginary games were well in the past now, and he hadn't thought about them for years since. It was now that they chose to make their comeback - when he was running away from those same howls that, for the sake of his amusement, had tried to emulate all of those years ago.
Lucy is holding his hand, and she is scared. He can tell because of the expression on her face and the way she keeps looking behind her, the way her eyes flicker about and are wide and white. The Beavers are at the very front of the group, moving at a remarkable speed despite their size; Maisie and Susan and Michael are just behind, and turn around every now and then to shout panicked encouragements. Peter is running alongside the two youngest ones, his speed carefully modulated so they can keep up. His eyes are trained on the path ahead.
Soon the Beavers' cosy dam comes into view, as they round the top of the valley. Down they go, Phillip careful not to trip, not this time. This time he can't afford to fall. They rush into the dam, slamming the doors shut and bolting them tight, even though they won't hold if the wolves reach them. When the wolves reach them.
"We're trapped!" Susan calls.
"No, we're not!" Mr Beaver replies, rushing to a trapdoor in the wall. Mrs Beaver seems to instantly realise what is going on; she gives a cry of, "Oh!" and begins hurriedly light lanterns and shove them into the hands of the bemused children.
"There's no time to waste!" She shouts, finishing with the lanterns and beginning to pack foodstuffs into the red checked tablecloth. "Get into the tunnel, quick!"
The howls are almost upon them now. Mr Beaver is busy unlocking the trapdoor and flinging it open, revealing a dark cavernous space behind. Phillip makes his decision; clutching his lantern and Lucy's hand, he drags them both into the tunnel and starts off after the Beaver. The others pile in after them. They move forward as quickly as possible; twisting around corners and sloping up and down, their hands catching on loose roots in the tunnel walls and sending dirt tumbling to the floor. All of a sudden, they stop again, the Beaver hissing: "Shhh!"
The sound of muffled barks and scrapings echoes down.
Peter's voice, agitated and afraid, comes out of the darkness in a harsh whisper. "They're in the tunnel."
With no further words, they start off again, faster than before. Phillip loses all sense of direction and gives himself over to the fear, only just managing to run after the Beaver. When they come out into the snow and moonlight, the cold hits them all over again and he isn't sure whether or not he is relieved. He drops his lantern to the floor as he scrambles away from the door, turning around just in time to see Michael grab a nearby barrel and shove it into the doorway, cutting the wolves off mid-howl.
They are silent for a while longer. The boys lean their full weight on the barrel and wait, as the Beaver listens through the wall. Philip stands, his breathing just beginning to steady, the cold air sharp in his lungs, until the Beaver leans away and says, at full volume, "We're safe. They've gone back."
At that, they collectively relax. Maisie sits down against the small rise in the forest floor that the tunnel emerges from, and looks around. "Where are we?"
At that, Phillip looks around too. They can't see much - it is dark now, and the trees block out a lot of the moonlight. But he can tell that they are in the middle of the dark forest, a steep slope down to their left. At the bottom of this ravine, he thinks that he can see the glimmer of a river. They stand on the flat, but the path that they are on curves down and around and seems to meet the valley floor. To their right, there is a structure built into the hillside - a door and a few glass windows are visible. These windows are suspiciously dark. Phillip steps forward to get a closer look.
"My mate Badger lives here." The Beaver says confidently. "We built the tunnel a few months back, so we could get to each other's houses quicker. I 'spect he's gone to bed early, but we'll see if he's in, he won't mind being woken up -"
Phillip stands staring down at a collection of strange statues on the ground. They are in the shapes of badgers, some large, some small, all looking up with expressions of terror on their faces. Hearing Mr Beaver's words, Phillip's heart sinks. "Mr Beaver -!" He calls.
The Beaver comes to a halt before the statues, seemingly stricken. Mrs Beaver rushes forward and takes her husband's arm. "Oh, Beaver-"
"He was my best mate." The Beaver quietly says.
Phillip looks helplessly back at his siblings.
A disembodied voice comes out of the path behind them. "That's what happens to those who disobey the Queen."
The Beaver changes immediately, and whirls around, rage in his features and voice. "You! I'll make you into mittens, I will, you traitor -"
A fox emerges from the gloom, blinking. "Hold on a minute! Let's not be so hasty." His voice contains faint amusement.
The Beaver growls, and his wife steps in front of him cautiously. "You're one of them!" He spits. "It was you!"
The fox jumps nimbly down before them. "An unfortunate family resemblance. I am decidedly not, as you say, one of them." A pair of shrewd brown eyes pass over the six children and register surprise. "Sons of Adam - Daughters of Eve - Dear me, the Queen would not be happy."
"What do you want, traitor?"
The fox doesn't reply to this, and sits composedly down. "She is on your tail, is she not?"
When no-on replies, he continues. "You will need to hide. It is of vital importance that you reach Aslan's camp. All of you. The two who are missing - where are they?"
"With her." Maisie answers. "With the Queen."
For a moment he says nothing. Then; "It is therefore even more important. Aslan will help you to free them. I trust you know where to go? Good. Now - the Queen's forces are not far behind you. You've lost them for now, but they'll be here in the morning. You should all rest."
Maisie sits with her coat tucked underneath her, her legs crossed inside its oversized tails. The heat from the fire scorches her face, but her back is cold. She is quiet and thoughtful, listening to the quiet voices of the others.
"Aslan's camp is near to the Stone Table, south of Beruna." The fox says gravely, his audience rapt. "I have just come from there. The citizens of Narnia are gathering. They are ready to fight, now that Aslan is here. We can once more have hope that this winter will end."
"Have you seen him?" Lucy whispers. "Aslan, I mean."
The fox nods. "Only once, but that was enough."
"What was he like?" Mrs Beaver asks, her voice eager.
The fox smiles. "Like everything we've ever dreamed of."
There is a silence. Maisie looks over at them. Their faces are full of wonder. She supposes that she can understand why. For the Beavers, this is the long awaited light at the end of the tunnel. For Lucy and Phillip, this is some shining new world, an adventure.
She turns her head and looks at Susan, Peter and Michael. They, like her, stare into the fire with little expression or movement. She smiles without humour. They've all got the same thing on their minds - their missing siblings. She can almost see the guilt on Peter's face.
As she thinks that, his eyes flicker onto her - and stay there. She looks back. He has tears in his eyes. Peter is crying.
He looks away fast and it's as if the tears have disappeared. His face shuts up, and she's left to wonder whether she imagined it or not.
"You have to rest now, children." Mrs Beaver says. Maisie turns to her, blinking. She is blind from looking into the fire.
"Go to sleep." The fox says. Maisie has come to like his voice - it's reassuring and steady. He sounds just like her father.
And so, with a sigh, she lies down, flipping up the collar of her fur coat and wrapping it around her head. The ground is hard and cold, and the coat smells of dust, but she is very, very tired; so she sleeps.
Hours pass in the cell. They don't speak again - Annie drifts in and out of sleep, resting her head on Edmund's shoulder. She wakes up to discover that he's taken her jumper off again and has draped it over her shoulders. Too exhausted to do anything, she falls asleep again.
She wakes a while later because Edmund is shaking her. His face is lit by torchlight and behind him, there is the shadow of a person, of someone.
Still woozy, she is dragged to her feet by rough hands and has her wrists once more bound, this time tighter. She is wrestled up the stairs and across the chamber from before, out into the castle courtyard. She is flung down, and finally her head begins to stop spinning.
With a yelp, Edmund lands opposite her. She looks up at him, and then around. She sits in a sleigh, on the hard floor. A host of white reindeer stand harnessed, ready to drive them away. And above her - a woman in a white fur coat, eyes cold as ice.
"Hello children." The Queen smiles. "Did you sleep well?"
There is a whip crack, and the sleigh jolts forward. Annie looks at Edmund. There is a scratch on his face, and he is bleeding.
The landscape they pass through is newly lit by the morning sun. The light is harsh and cold, so Annie closes her eyes. She shudders and leans her head back against the wall, trying to ignore the jolts of the sleigh that occasionally cause her to convulse once more, her lungs feeling raw. She swallows the blood down, trying to ignore the taste it leaves in her mouth.
As the sleigh seems to draw to a halt, she opens her eyes. They are in the woods - Edmund is looking at her with concern.
The Queen stands up. She seems impossibly tall, impossibly pale. She crackles with power. The spear held in her hand is held tightly. Her face draws into a smile, but she isn't looking at them.
"Well." She says, her voice drawling and high pitched. "What do we have here?"
There is a fox, held in the mouth of a wolf. It is limp, subdued - but its eyes are moving.
"You didn't happen to see any children, did you?" She steps from the sleigh, her feet not sinking into the snow. "Any humans?"
The fox is silent. The Queen smiles more - gives a vicious swipe of her hand, and the wolf tightens its jaws.
The fox lets out a whine. Annie sees red seeping into the orange of the fur and cringes.
"I don't know what you're talking about." It gasps. "I haven't seen any children."
The Queen's head tilts to one side. "Oh, I think you have. Where did they go?"
The same again. The silence, the jaws, the sound. This time, blood drips onto the snow before the fox cries out.
"North! North! They went North."
A nod from the Queen, and the fox is released. The wolves streak away, the noise of them soon gone. The White Woman steps closer to the bundle on the ground. "Thank you for your information. If it is found to be untrue, I will be very displeased. Do you understand?"
Annie cannot see. Black spots have begun to cloud her vision. She clenches her fists and tucks her head down. She coughs into her knees, feeling the blood drip down her chin and onto the front of her skirt. From somewhere very high above her, she hears the sound of the whip crack, feels herself being whisked away once more. The world is fading away from her again. There is a pain in her head, her throat, her stomach - her nails are cutting her palms. She misses Maisie and Michael and Phillip. She bites back a sob - she can't cry now. She can't let go, she has to hold on, because, because...
The sleigh moves onward. Annie refuses to let go.