A/N: So. Uh. I did not mean to take a 3 week break on this story 😅 My beta reader's calling it a holiday break, I'm calling it whoopsie I added a minor plot point at the last minute and fried my own plans for the chapter and it took me 3 weeks to type any meaningful tangle of words.
Since this chapter is going up very off the usual schedule, the next chapter will drop next Sunday, so in 10 days. (Bear with me, I'm still figuring out the outlines I blew up.)
Right then, on to the chapter. We're closing in on a chapter I think most of y'all will be Very excited about 😘
Chapter 75 Content Warnings: light gore
Chapter 75: the harsh realm
Addie
Narnian festivals are liveliest in forests and under moonlight, celebration sung and piped and drummed into the sky with clear voices, lutes, pipes, lively drums. In Ettinsmoor, it is fire that defines celebrations. Here, fire is both survival and triumph, a necessary ward against the moor's harsh cold and proof life finds a way even in the north. At dusk, the village leader lights the tower of pine logs dominating the village square as the whole village chants wards against the cold and gratitude for the harvest.
Now, as twilight darkens to early sunset, the village eats at long tables encircling the fire as it blazes higher than the tallest village building. The chants continue sporadically around the tables, fragments dropped as people take bites of food and their neighbours carry the tune, around and around.
"Cleave the stalks, sickle and knife, day's soon done, home to your wife -"
The bonfire blazes and crackles, sparks flying up towards the emerging stars in the darkening sky. Addie claps along and joins the chant, breath clouding in the night as Cesare bangs the table slightly off-rhythm.
The chant continues around the circle and Addie pauses to eat, dipping a heel of nutty, seed-crusted bread into her hare and turnip stew.
"You're coming back tomorrow?" Lola says, a hand on Addie's shoulder.
Addie hums affirmation, mouth full. Across the fire, the chant stutters, as if tripping over its own exuberance.
"Definitely," Addie confirms after swallowing. "Same time as…"
Movement snags her attention, a passing shadow to her left. Addie trails off, the two guards beside her following her gaze.
A red-bearded tower of a man stumbles from the darkness, his mug sloshing with a fresh refill.
"'Ere's to the harvest, best in five years!" he shouts, beard wet with ale foam. "And 'ere's to the good Lady!"
Addie exhales, tension leaving her shoulders as the villagers cheer and bang their mugs on the table. Caspian advised her not to stay outside after dark, but it is a festival, and the wolves recently retreated north. She thumps her mug and almost spills her cider, but that's nothing compared to Cesare, who slams his wooden cup down so hard it cracks, spilling juice across the table.
"Easy there," Alfonso laughs, his eyes bright with drink, even as Lola sighs. Cesare's exhausted both her and Alfonso's sister today, even with the temporary obedience the northman instilled in him this morning.
The chant approaches its crescendo, a steady heartbeat of rhymes and well-wishes.
A chill wind creeps through the square, so slow it hardly disturbs the roaring bonfire. The chant falters, and a low rumble fills the quiet.
Addie puts down her bowl and her last bite of bread. Underneath the scent of wood-smoke and bitter ale, a sickly, sour-sweet scent tickles her nose. Beside her, the northmen slowly stand, hands hovering by their sword hilts.
"Auntie, what's the words for -"
"Shh," Addie says.
The village quiets. Alfonso reaches back toward a hut, where his crossbow leans. Not two hours ago, when Lola frowned, he kissed her forehead and told her not to worry, just a precaution. "Better to have it and not need it," he'd said as he strapped a short sword to his belt.
Lola hushes Cesare again and pulls him into her arms.
Addie inhales, the back of her neck pricking with awareness.
She knows that smell… that cloying, metallic stink of rotting meat and… blood.
I can drink a river of blood and not burst.
Beyond the firelight, the flickering shadows move.
Across the circle, someone screams. With a wet snap, their voice dies, drowned out by a growl.
"Go!"
Alfonso shoves Lola toward the nearest hut, their son in her arms. Cesare yelps as Lola topples the bench and almost pitches sideways before righting herself and sprinting. Addie stumbles to follow, fumbling for a knife, a platter, anything. All around, the villagers are fleeing into their huts or drawing blades and shooting arrows at the blurs of fur and snarls and bloody teeth leaping from the darkness.
A wolf pounces on a woman frozen with panic. Moments ago, her slim cheeks were rosy with drink and firelight, her rich brown hair woven in two braids.
She doesn't even have time to scream. She's there, and then she's a rag doll caught between yellowed canines, her face frozen in shock.
"Get inside!"
The northman's yell snaps past shock and returns her sense. Addie's already running as he pushes her toward a hut and whirls on a snapping wolf. His blade sings through the air, already splattered with gore, and the wolf's head rolls, teeth still bared, yellow eyes rolled back. His fellow guard is already charging into the fray, eyes wild and sword shining in the firelight.
A chorus of howls split the air - a call to the hunt.
Addie sprints for the closest hut. A wooden hilt chafes her palm, the knife she grabbed with butter still smeared on it.
Beyond the hut, the inky black of night shifts, and two yellow eyes lock on her. Addie's breath rasps, panic pumping her legs faster. Almost there… yes!
She wrenches the door open just as claws pound behind her. Addie whirls to slam the door, the smell of the wolf so strong it burns like smoke in her throat.
She's too late.
The door catches on a black snout. The wolf snaps and growls, teeth dripping putrid saliva onto the dirt floor. No blood stains its fangs - she'll be its first kill.
Addie throws all her weight against the door, heels dug in as her arms and back burn with effort, a desperate yelp of exertion leeching past her lips. The wolf is huge, its maw level with her shoulders.
Her feet skid back, knocking over a chair. The wolf's entire head pushes inside as its weight rattles the hinges. Its teeth tear Addie's sleeve, the reek of damp fur almost stronger than its foul breath.
Shit, shit, it's too strong. It'll force its way inside and she'll be a rag doll and -
Addie grits her teeth and shoves, winning an inch. She's survived a werewolf before! But that was with Caspian there to drag her out of reach, with Caspian's dagger in her hand.
The knife.
The wolf tries to bite again. Addie yells as its teeth find their mark, nipping her left arm.
Her right still grips the knife she took from the table. It's no dagger, but it might be sharp enough.
She needs its head lower.
Gripping the knife, Addie shoves forward with all her might. The wolf yowls, its neck pinched between the door and the frame, and jerks up - opposite of what she wanted.
But exposing its throat.
Addie stabs up.
The wolf chokes on its howl, ferocity bleeding into a choked whimper. Addie's stomach lurches as she pulls out the knife and blood sprays down her arm.
It's not enough.
The wolf's pained whine surges into a ragged growl. Its howl pierces her ears, deafening and mocking. You think you can survive? the sound says as the beast redoubles its efforts against the door, rattling old hinges. Where I bite, not a single morsel escapes my jaws. It heaves, hind claws digging into the dirt as its foul breath gusts in her face.
The werewolf forces its head and neck further inside, prying against the door with a shoulder, clawing at her with sharp talons and drawing blood. Canine eyes rimmed with bloodshot veins stare at her, rabid and angry and hungry, threatening to swallow her whole.
With a final roaring shove, it slams the door open, and, clutching her knife - her last hope, can't waste it - Addie braces her back against the door and shoves, because she did not fall into Narnia just to die here.
The wolf's muzzle peels back in a sharp grin. It's toying with her, delighting in how her limbs shake.
Abruptly, the werewolf jerks and coughs, blood splattering across Addie's face. Long, sharp claws dig out furrows in the wooden door as it reaches towards her. It slides to its knees, to the ground, slowing as its maw sags open, life leaving bloodshot eyes, and the beast slumps down in the gap between the door and the frame. A wet squelching sound comes from outside, accompanied by a ragged grunt as the werewolf - the body, the carcass, the corpse - jerks again.
Peering around the splintered door, Addie finds the larger of her two guards, the northman, wrenching his blade free of the wolf's back. He's covered in blood and splattered potato and turnip stew and fur torn loose from werewolf flesh, but his teeth, bared in a fierce grimace, shine in the firelight. His gaze snaps to hers, a flicker of green in his eyes there a moment and gone the next, a trick of the light.
"Milady, are you alright?"
"I… yes, I'm alright," Addie says. There's blood on her knife, and the wolf's body is still.
The howls and sounds of battle return to her ears, and the northman looks over the hut, then back into the open. In the fire-lit battle beyond, her other guard furiously hacks at dark, murderous beasts alongside the other villagers who had weapons close to hand.
She can't see Alfonso. And Lola ran somewhere, and - oh God, did she make it?
Addie grips the splintered door, grateful for the pain that clears her head. "My family, they - fuck, Lola, Cesare, they… have you seen -"
"Stay inside and lock the Tash-cursed door!" The towering northman shouts, then takes hold of the wolf's coarse fur.
"But -"
"Now!"
Addie slams the door as soon as the northman drags the wolf's carcass free. The lock is a crude thing, a peg that slots into the door jamb, but it's thick and strong. It should hold.
Through a crack in the door, Addie watches the northmen turn away, blade raised and ready. A werewolf charges him immediately, slamming into the burly guard with a crash of armour and rage. The two fall to the dirt, claws flashing and longsword flying away.
The wolf gets atop the large man, jaws gnashing as it struggles to reach his throat while the northman holds it at bay with arms bulging with muscle, not even trying to reach for his fallen sword.
Addie steels herself to open the door, to help, but the northman roars and twists the wolf's neck with a sickening crack. In the same breath, he draws a dagger from his belt and drives it into the creature's chest again and again, painting his own chestplate in gore.
The wolf's body sags, flopping to the ground as the northman stands, scratched and sweaty and victorious. He spits on the dead wolf, retrieves his blade, and positions himself in front of the hut door, shouting a challenge into the night.
Addie stares at the first wolf's body, now a limp corpse of fur and blood beside its fellow, their yellow eyes blank and unseeing.
It would've killed her. Happily. It would've killed her and her guards and anyone else in its way with one easy snap of its jaws and feasted on their corpses.
Addie shivers, back braced against the door as she listens to the carnage outside, willing herself to forget the wolf's dying, whimpering whines.
Beyond the hut's sanctuary, howls and growls tangle with the villagers' screams and desperate war-cries. Crossbows twang, swords ring, and men and beasts alike bellow with pain. It's impossible to tell who's winning.
Do not set foot outside the manor after dark. The werewolves prowl most viciously at night.
Bit late to heed that advice.
Addie heaves a ragged breath, her chest tight and her limbs trembling as she takes stock of the hut. It's small, simple, furnished with only a cot, two chairs, a table, and a wooden trunk, all pine, all clearly handmade and well-worn with use.
Hopefully, its occupant is still alive.
A low, clear horn pierces the sounds of battle. The ground shakes as a rhythmic pounding drums, approaching rapidly.
It sounds like horses.
Addie makes her way over to the window, little more than a hole in the wall with rough wooden shutters. Keeping her knife at her side and her fingers tight around the hilt, she peeks out, wincing against the sight.
Right now, the wolves are winning; the courtyard is a slaughterhouse. The harvest feast is overturned, tureens of stew and platters of bread and meat disappeared under broken bodies and the occasional dead wolf, its unnaturally long limbs splayed across the table. The bonfire roars on, uncaring and oblivious, as its light catches on dark red pools and swords and glassy eyes staring into nothing.
The hoofbeats drum closer. A werewolf abandons a dead villager, its snout wet and dark with blood, and looks to the west.
The horn peals again, its single note warm like fireplace coals. From the darkness, a cavalry explodes into firelight, led by soldiers in dark chainmail and armour stamped with Opheodra's seal. The wolves growl, fur spiking along their haunches and backs.
For a moment, they don't attack. As if they're waiting for something.
Then a soldier shoots a werewolf in the eye. It falls to the ground, pink tongue lolling.
The werewolves leap at the cavalry with jaws open and long claws swiping, vicious in their hunger. The cavalrymen's swords and pikes lance through the beasts, felling at least two for every soldier that falls prey to a wolf's attack. Behind the soldiers, men in ragtag chainmail and leathers fill in the ranks - villagers from other towns, here for revenge or to prevent anyone else from suffering their losses.
It's over quickly. A mess of spears and bloody muzzles, swords and snarls, arrows and cruel claws, and far quicker than seems possible, it's just… over. A few werewolves run into the dark, whimpering defeat and closely chased by armed villagers and soldiers led on by baying hounds and a crowing nighthawk. The rest of the company stays behind to search the village, their gory swords drawn and crossbows cocked.
Addie rests her brow against the windowsill.
It's over. She's alive.
Lola. Cesare. Alfonso.
Bloody hell, what is she doing cowering here?
Addie fumbles to unlock the door and barrels out of the hut, stumbling over the cooling body of the wolf she helped slay. Her northman is gone, a splatter of scarlet blood the only indication he once guarded her door. A spear-tip black with blood points at her face and sends her scrabbling back, butt in the dirt before she can even curse.
The soldier flips the spear around, his face grim. "Careful, lass. You alright?"
Addie blinks as he offers her the spear's blunt end. Slowly, she takes it and he hauls her to her feet.
"Sorry," she mumbles. "And thanks."
She skirts the edge of the carnage, sticking close to the firelight's edge so the others can see she isn't a threat.
Her eyes water at the smell.
She hates this part. Too well, she remembers the stench of battle and death. She hoped she'd never smell it again.
Lola.
Addie pulls her collar over her nose and peers into hut after hut, all occupied by one or two or eight cowering people, but no one she's looking for. Some meet her eyes and trickle outside, tentative as rabbits, while others remain inside, huddled with their fellows.
"You alright, milady?"
The northman who saved her life limps over, bracing his weight on his sword dug tip-down into the blood-wet dirt. Addie rushes to meet him, eyes fixed on the bloody mess of his right leg. His thigh is a mass of torn muscle and chunks of missing flesh, resembling a slab of ill-butchered meat more than a limb.
He got hurt protecting her - her and the village.
Addie swears to Tash and cuts strips from her skirt. With Queen Lucy's cordial, he could walk normally now. Without it, the northman may never walk properly again.
If she'd just waited a day, never risked it, left sooner…
But did her two guards buy precious time? They're warriors more than the villagers.
She doesn't have to think about that right now.
Addie binds his leg in strips of her underskirt, the cleanest cloth she has ready. The northman grunts, then falls silent, his teeth bared.
"Sorry," Addie mutters. "And thank you. You saved my life."
The northman pushes her hands away and tests his weight on his leg. He wobbles, then sits on the table's edge with a scowl.
"Orders were to keep you alive," he says.
"Still, thank you."
The northman mutters something under his breath, his injured leg outstretched. His companion appears from the shadows, splattered in werewolf blood and a few shallow scratches, but otherwise unharmed. Addie leaves them in each other's care and continues on.
Alfonso isn't anywhere to be seen. He's not among the corpses strewn across the feast tables, yet he's not visible among the surviving villagers.
Wait - yes, he is. Ahead, slumped against a hut, blood soaking his shirt from his collar to his torso. Alfonso's face twists, but his eyes are open and his chest rises with breaths.
Addie sprints over. Bollocks, Ettinsmoor's herbs are different from what Rainroot taught her - the plants she knows don't grow here - and it's been years. She's as good as useless, can't help, can't do anything -
She can try. She can do that.
"Alfonso!" Addie kneels beside him, cuts a strip from her skirt, and presses the cloth to an ugly bite on his shoulder. Four puncture wounds, two in the front and two behind - painful, definitely damaged the muscle, but not enough blood loss he's in mortal danger.
At least, she thinks so. Shit, where did Rainroot say the dangerous spot on a shoulder was? Atop the shoulder or in the armpit?
"Lola," Alfonso gasps as she applies pressure to the wound. "Where is she? Where is Cesare, my boy, he -"
"I'll find them," Addie says. "Hold this, stay here. I'll find them, okay?"
Alfonso struggles to his feet, wincing. "No, I didn't see if she - and my sister, my parents, I -"
Addie steadies him. "Alright, okay. Let me patch you up, two minutes at most, and we'll find Lola and Cesare, then the rest of your family."
Alfonso's face contorts, lip trembling as he glances frantically between the line of huts behind him and the west-facing main street where his family lives.
Addie catches Alfonso's elbow as he tries to shove past her. "Do you want Lola and Cesare to see you like this?"
"I didn't see if… wolves tore into a few huts, see, over there, they…" He straightens, determination cutting through the battle-shock. "I have to find them. See they're alright."
In the War of Deliverance, Lola was safely in the castle. If Alfonso fought in the Ettinsmoor War, Lola was still in the capital, still safe.
Addie hushes him and shakes his good shoulder hard enough Alfonso's growing furor tempers.
"If you go into shock, you won't get far. Sit down, let me staunch this bleeding, then we'll go."
She corrals him for half the time with more makeshift bandages from her skirt and a splash of alcohol that makes him swear, and then Alfonso's off again, banging on doors and yelling for his wife. Addie rushes ahead where she can, though Alfonso insists on looking into every dwelling himself to see Lola isn't there.
Three huts later, Alfonso quiets. He bangs on the door, it swings open, and his face crumples into relief.
Lola catches him with one arm, her other balancing Cesare on her hip.
"Papa," he whimpers. "You stink."
Alfonso's shoulders shake in laughter wrought more from giddy relief and exhaustion than amusement as Lola kisses him over and over, heedless of the red-pink streaks on his chin and cheeks. Addie sighs. Alfonso wouldn't stay still long enough for her to clean him up very well.
Lola's gaze falls to his shoulder. "Alfonso…"
"I'm alright," he says unsteadily. He tucks Lola's hair behind her ear with a tremulous hand, his other hanging limp, and kisses Cesare's forehead. "Are you? Are you alright?"
"We're alright," Lola says. "We're fine, see?" Suddenly she straightens, relief cracking in two. "Addie, where is -"
"I'm here."
Addie takes Lola's hand while Alfonso dotes on his son. Cesare tries to look around while Alfonso's careful to block his view of the village square.
"Tash's talons, what happened to you?" Lola pulls Addie into a hug, her cheek wet against Addie's shoulder.
Right, she never washed her own face. She's splattered with werewolf blood.
"I said hullo to a werewolf," Addie says, hiding her bloodied knife behind her back. Though Lola's seen it, Cesare hasn't, and he shouldn't. He's still a child, and he ought to stay one.
Lola wipes the wolf blood crusted on her cheek. Addie catches her hand and holds it.
"I'm fine."
Alfonso leans around Lola and peers into the hut. "Are Ma and Pa with you? Ora?"
Lola shakes her head. "I haven't seen them."
"I'll keep looking. But you…" Alfonso kisses Lola's cheek, then forehead, then her mouth, still visibly trembling - either shock, relief, or both.
Lola kisses him, short and fierce. "We're alright. Go. Addie'll look after Cesare."
Addie shivers. She's no warrior, but she won't die easy.
It's not much. Bloody shits, she's as helpless as she was in the How, in the war that tore her and Caspian apart.
"The wolves are on the run," Addie tells Alfonso. "You should find the rest of your family now, in case the stragglers circle back."
Alfonso glances between her and Lola, torn. After a moment, he pulls Addie aside, his eyes hard as steel.
"Bar the door," he says. "Stay inside and don't come out until I knock. Understand? Even if the wolves circle back, you keep them inside no matter what you hear."
Addie clasps Alfonso's hand on her shoulder. He's trusting her with his family.
Her family, too.
"I will," she says, as good as a swear.
Alfonso lifts the knife in her hand and presses it between their palms - a soldier's promise, as the cries of the wounded fill the square.
Addie makes herself meet his eyes and swallows the churning in her stomach as she calls for her guards and ushers them inside first. They settle just inside the door and the shorter man resumes treating his fellow, his face impassive.
Alfonso's intensity slides away as he kisses Lola and pushes Cesare's face back into his mother's shoulder.
"Don't look," Alfonso murmurs. "Just sleep, Cesare."
"But -"
"Listen to papa," Lola says. "Look, Auntie Addie's here."
Cesare lifts his head, and Addie slides to further block out the ruined feast.
"Did you get hurt, auntie?"
Addie forces a smile, scrubs her face, and tucks the knife into her waist tie. She should've cleaned off better, but she was so focused on making sure Alfonso wouldn't bleed out or go into shock. Before she can finish, Lola gives her Cesare.
"Nope, just a little messy," Addie tells him. "Let's go back inside, okay?"
"If you sense anything, anything at all, shout," Alfonso says again, hovering. "I'd rather a false alarm than - love, what are you doing?"
Lola takes his good hand, her eyes lingering on Alfonso's bloody bandages. "I'm going with you. Addie's got Cesare, and the Lady's men are here now."
Alfonso shakes his head, brows drawn into a single line.
"It's dangerous."
"And you're hurt," Lola murmurs.
"Papa's hurt bad?" Cesare lifts his head, resisting when Addie tries to tuck it down.
"Only a bit," Alfonso says, though his face is pale. "I'll be back soon, little dragon."
Cesare yawns. "'M not a dragon, I'm a knight."
Addie tucks a curl behind his ear. "Then can you look after me? Dragons used to live in Ettinsmoor, you know."
"Re-e-e-eeally?"
Cesare gapes, attention captured. Lola and Alfonso back away, faces torn as Addie goes into the hut.
"Really. I bet you haven't heard of Bairroas the Fire-Bringer, have you? He was a fearsome dragon as long as the castle bridge, and when he lived in the Wild Lands, the mountains were still younger than you…"
Caspian
"Good morrow, Caspian!"
Lilliandil's musical greeting rings through the garden, bright as summer sunshine. How she musters such cheer barely an hour after sunrise, he'll never understand.
"Good morning," Caspian says, voice still raspy as he kisses her hand. He's been up for hours after a restless night of fitful sleep, and his wakefulness does not equal clarity or especially good cheer.
As autumn shortens the days, Caspian has risen earlier and earlier, chased from his bed by the encroaching cold and the fire that always blazes too hot or dwindles too fast. The occasional nightmare of werewolves and a witch behind an ice wall and kneeling in a pool of blood hasn't helped, either.
Lilliandil peers up at him, blue eyes shadowed under drawn eyebrows. "Have you been sleeping well?"
Caspian rubs his face. He hasn't slept well in weeks.
"Not so well as I could be," he admits.
Lilliandil takes her seat across from him and dips her fingertips in the burbling fountain. "Is there still trouble in Ettinsmoor?"
Caspian joins her at the table. A tiered plate of apples, pears, soft cheeses, and various rolls and crackers sits between them, as yet untouched. Lilliandil always waits for him.
"No immediate trouble," Caspian says. "The wolves retreated again. Lady Opheodra hopes the coming winter will keep them in their dens."
"That would be fortunate," says Lilliandil as she pours tea for him, then herself. Sweet lemon and ginger-scented steam wafts from the teacups. Lilliandil's decided she likes citrus drinks the best in the morning.
Lilliandil's reassurances ring hollow. She does not know what these creatures are.
Caspian spins his fork around his thumb before he remembers his elbow is on the table.
"It would," he agrees. "Were these normal wolves, I would not expect them to hunt south of the River Shribble before spring."
Lilliandil frowns, spoon tinging her teacup as she stirs in a gob of honey. "What do you mean?"
Caspian abandons his fork and takes up his butter knife, spinning it tip-down on his napkin. Only Lady Opheodra's repeated insistence that her men have the wolf pack under control has kept him from riding north with a small company to dispatch the beasts himself.
His instinct is to wait, but his instincts have led him astray in prior wars. Yet thus far, all reports from Ettinsmoor - from the Lady and his own spies - have confirmed that Lady Opheodra's forces have kept the wolves on the run.
"A werewolf once claimed to me it could lie a hundred nights on the ice without freezing," Caspian says. "If it spoke true, I fear winter will bring a shorter reprieve than Lady Opheodra hopes."
Lilliandil pauses with her teacup halfway to her lips. "You've met a werewolf?"
Caspian grimaces. "Only once, thankfully. It was years ago, in the war against my uncle."
A creaking gate and pattering hooves draw his attention before he can explain further. A slim faun with a greying beard trots down the garden path, rustling ivy and perennials chased into hibernation by autumn.
"News from Ettinsmoor, Your Majesty," says the faun. "From Lady Opheodra."
Caspian's knife clatters to the table.
"Thank you," he says, a hurried courtesy as he takes the letter before the faun can offer it.
The faun bows and steps back.
Caspian tears the letter open, ripping off a circle of pine-dark wax stamped with Lady Opheodra's seal, his eyes already scanning the parchment.
Lion's Mane; there's been another attack.
Your Royal Majesty,
It is my displeasure to inform you that the werewolves have struck another village - in the midst of a harvest festival, no less. I am sorry to say there were a number of casualties. While my hunting parties patrolled the Giant Bridge and the River Shribble's western reaches, the beasts crept east and struck further south than we've yet seen.
Caspian almost drops the letter. Addie was to visit her friends for the harvest, and Alfonso's village lies in the southeast.
"What's wrong?"
Forcing a steadying breath, Caspian meets Lilliandil's concerned gaze with what he hopes is kingly composure.
"Another attack," he says. Then Caspian turns to the messenger. "Are there any other letters from the north? Reports, missives, anything?"
"No, Sire," says the faun.
Parchment crinkles in his hands, threatening to tear. Caspian sets his jaw and reads on.
However, there is also good news. My men have at last dispatched the foul creatures. They will haunt our countryside no more.
Caspian skims the rest. For Ettinsmoor, the worst appears to be over. Displaced villagers are slowly returning home escorted by Lady Opheodra's guards and local militia. The dead have been burned on their pyres and their ashes buried, the wounded have been seen to, and the last werewolf has been disposed of.
Good news, all.
But nothing further about casualties. The letter names the attacked village - Osta - but offers no additional details.
"Caspian?"
He startles at the touch of her cool hand.
"Forgive me, I…" Caspian clears his throat and clutches the letter. "There are things I must see to."
Concern taints Lilliandil's smile, but she makes no protest.
"Of course," she murmurs, her hand briefly cupping his.
Caspian follows the messenger brusquely, calling another apology in his wake. The moment he's out of earshot, he turns to the faun.
"Go to the Captain of the Guard and find which village the soldier Alfonso came from. Report back to me immediately."
"Yes, Your Majesty." The faun bows and trots off, hooves clacking over the stone path.
"And summon my fastest messenger!"
Addie,
I just received news of the attack on Osta. I trust you were not there when it occurred?
Urgently,
Caspian
Addie,
I recall you intended to visit Lola and her family at Alfonso's home village for the harvest festival. I hope you will write back telling me they did not make the journey after all, and you thus had no errand to put you in Osta during the attack.
Please correct my optimistic assumption if it is incorrect.
Anxiously,
Caspian
Addie,
If you were at Osta, tell me at once. I have already sent Rainroot and a small team of healers to Ettinsmoor with all haste to assist the injured. They should arrive shortly after this letter.
Caspian
P.S. Are Lola, Alfonso, and Cesare alright?
Addie,
Lady Opheodra mentioned casualties. Please reply promptly so I can be certain you were not one of them.
Caspian
Addie,
In the name of the Lion, send your report if nothing else.
Caspian
Under a sky dark with gathering thunderclouds, Caspian paces his balcony and taps his next letter against his palm. Sir Swiftbeak is due back any moment, hopefully with a reply.
A week with no word from her.
Caspian runs a hand through his hair, still sweaty from a long morning on the sparring field. The exercise was less than helpful.
A falcon's cry floats on the breeze.
Caspian leans on the railing, stone cool beneath his palm, and squints as a ray of sun breaks through the clouds. A falcon glides into view, wings spread wide as he rapidly closes the distance - it's Sir Swiftbeak. A peregrine falcon, Swiftbeak is the fastest messenger in all Narnia, capable of flying to Ettinsmoor and back in less than a day and a night. Thrice, the falcon has made the journey, only to return empty-beaked every time.
The noble bird lands on the railing, talons curling around the grey stone.
"No reply, Sire," he says, voice high and clear as a snowmelt stream. "Lady Opheodra assured me she would give Adelaine the letters upon her return."
Caspian bites back a curse. Swiftbeak has returned with the same reassurance from Opheodra four times now, each one less comforting than the last.
"Deliver this with all urgency," Caspian says, tucking his letter into the slim carrier pouch strapped to Swiftbeak's chest. "Do not return until you've personally given this to Addie. No one else."
The falcon bows its head and spreads his slate grey wings.
"It will be done, Sire."
"Thank you," Caspian says as Swiftbeak takes off in a near-silent dive off the railing, then swoops up and flies northward once more.
Caspian lingers on the balcony long after the falcon's silhouette vanishes over the horizon.
A/N: Is it just me, or does Caspian seem a trifle worried? 😇
Chapter 76 Preview:
Addie clutches the stack of letters to her chest and pads through the manor's halls in stocking feet. If she showed these to Lola, Lola'd be just as likely to burn them as read them. But Opheodra might understand.
Addie finds her on the library's small balcony, staring into north as a blood-red sunset bathes her lands and the rocky moors beyond in crimson and fiery orange-gold.
"Opheodra? I need your help."