THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE BBC
PART 23
DEEPER MAGIC FROM BEFORE THE DAWN OF TIME
PREVIOUSLY: The Aslan's army arrives to Beruna River to make their camp there, Where Aslan telks Peter to prepare to fight the Witch after she has finished her business back at the Stone Table. However, Peter is left confused that Aslan won't be there at the time of the battle. Aslan isolates himself from everyone and looks so solemn and sad, much to everybody's confusion. At middle of the night, Susan, Lucy and Chirp catch the sight of Aslan sneaking away from the camp and follow him. Aslan discovers them but permits them to walk with him till he tells them to stop. They arrive to the Stone Table and Aslan proceeds to move forward alone, while Susan, Lucy and Chirp watch from the bushes. They see the Witch's army of monsters, evil spirits and demons around the Table, who by the Witch's orders tie him up, shave off his mane and torture/disgrace him heaving him onto the Table. Before killing Aslan, the Witch taunts him for his sacrifice to save Edmund's life and declares that she will kill him too and take over Narnia forever with him gone. After killing the Great Lion, the Witch leads her army to war.
After the search party returned to the camp, Flamestorm had immediately taken over the situation.
Not only to ensure that no one else strayed out of the camp until dawn but also for the immediate threat of the White Witch's army, the Centaur put the whole camp on full alert: He ordered the number of guards to be doubled, the scouts to stay alert for the arrival of the Witch's army and the word to be spread that everyone needed to be ready to move no battle-able Narnians to other side of the river and be themselves ready for the battle at dawn.
"Return to the pavilion, your highnesses." Flamestorm told to Peter and Edmund, beckoning them towards their tent. "Rest while you can. We'll come to wake you up then earlier at the morning to make you ready for battle. Good night."
With that said, and earning the following nods from both boys, Flamestorm took his leave for the duties elsewhere.
Philip and Pearl took the boys to the pavilion, in front of which they bowed deep down to ease most likely physically and mentally exhausted boys' dismounting from the saddle/back.
"Good night, my lords." Pearl politely wished before walking off to rest himself.
"See you in the morning." Philip said, before the horse left to find someone to unsaddle him before going to sleep. He really didn't like to sleep saddled, even if there wasn't many hours left till the first light of the dawn.
Peter and Edmund wished their mounts the good nights before they withdrew into the pavilion to sleep for the rest of the night.
Once inside, the boys took off their cloaks and weapons, boots and extra clothes before they each laid down on their respective beds and, tired from riding in the woods looking for the girls and Aslan, fell quickly asleep.
Well, at least Edmund did, while Peter only lied down awake in his bed and stared up at the ceiling of the pavilion, too preoccupied with the thought of tomorrow's battle and his concern for the girls that he couldn't sleep.
After a couple hours of sleep...
KA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!
Edmund was startled awake by a distant but super-loud and ominously sounding thunder, along with the multiple streaks of lightning that spread swiftly along the sky, briefly illuminating everything on the ground with the bright flash of light.
Alarmed, heart beating fast and breathing heavily, Edmund looked frantically to the left and right as the boom of the thunder started to fade away and the bright lightning outside briefly illuminated the walls of the pavilion, before it was dark once again.
Very slowly, Edmund's startle turned to confusion when he noticed that both the thunder and the lightning stopped like to a wall without continuing as it naturally should.
Narnia was, of course, a magical world, but probably not so magical now that any magic would affect its weather.
However, more Edmund pondered about the matter, it slowly started to dawn on him.
The Witch had casted the spell that put the whole Land of Narnia under the grasp of the harsh and unnatural winter for one hundred years. The work of the Witch's dark magic.
And when Aslan returned, the Witch's spell over the land was broken and the spring and the eventual summer returned to Narnia within a day. The work of Aslan's magical presence.
And then there was the Deep Magic of this Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea, that put the laws into effect and determines the fate of Narnia, both good and bad, depending on the obedience towards those laws according to the Witch's words.
For a moment Edmund, who upon realizing that he didn't die on the Stone Table as he was supposed to since the Witch renounced her claim on his life, thus going against those laws, feared that Narnia was really facing the end of the world because of that, because of him, and that they were standing right in middle of it. So Edmund wrapped his blanket around of him and braced for the worst to happen.
However, after waiting for between the fifteen minutes to half an hour, nothing happened.
There was not fire or water that destroyed Narnia and that they were all still pretty much alive.
Why nothing happened? And yet that recent thunderclap sounded too ominous to be just normal weather.
Edmund pondered it a little deeper about the possible meaning of the ominous thunder: He pondered that if Aslan had somehow managed to get the Witch to give up her plans to kill him at the Stone Table even at the risk of Narnia being destroyed, yet Narnia had not been destroyed due to him being still alive, and that recent thunderclap both sounded and felt like something significant, and perhaps terrible, had just happened.
Then he remembered that the dogs and Leopards had told them earlier in the forest that the tracks of both their sisters, Chirp and Aslan, led right to the Stone Table currently occupied by enemies, which made him once again wonder why Aslan would have gone there and taken the girls and Chirp there with him.
When he put the two together, everything slowly began to dawn on him...
Since Aslan had confirmed that the Witch was right about Narnia being destroyed unless he was sacrificed on the Stone Table as a traitor, and remembering that the Witch had said that Aslan knew the Deep Magic better than anyone, that even he could not deny her her right to kill him by force, Edmund could think of no reasonable conclusion as to how Aslan had been able to save his life without Narnia having to be destroyed while he was still alive, unless Aslan...
Now realizing, or at least thinking he realized what Aslan had done, Edmund was left completely shocked and utterly devastated from inside.
"He couldn't..." Edmund whispered to himself.
The boy desperately hoped that such of thought wasn't true, but the memories of Aslan's "promise" mentioned earlier by the Witch, the Great Lion's blue mood all yesterday, his return to the Table occupied by enemies, and the brief yet ominous thunderstorm told a completely different story: the harsh truth.
Again overwhelmed by the guilt of what his actions had led to, Edmund's head fell from his shoulders and landed face first on his waiting palms, covering his face with his hands and shaking his head in disbelief and shame.
"He's gone. Gone." Edmund dejectedly whispered to himself. "And it's all my fault."
"What are you talking about, Ed?" Peter's voice asked quietly.
Edmund, once again startled by the unexpected sound/voice, jerked his head up and turned to look at Peter, whom he found lying on his back in his bed, without having turned to look at him but staring blankly at the ceiling of the pavilion as well.
"Peter? Have you slept at all?" Edmund asked, confused.
Peter didn't look at him, but shook his head in denial. "No. Too many troubling thoughts in my head to be able to sleep. How about you?"
Edmund shook his own head as well. "Not the one bit. I guess I'm too troubled too much to sleep as well." he half-lied, having no heart to share with his big brother of what he either had or believed having discovered.
Edmund then threw the blanked off him and moved to sit on the edge of his bed, where he rested his head on his palms again and leaned on his knees by his elbows, while Peter remained lying in his bed and staring up at the ceiling.
"Are you thinking about tomorrow's battle?" he questioned, wanting to take his thoughts away from the thoughts regarding Aslan.
Peter sighed miserably. "Every passing second. The battle, which I must lead. I'm not sure if I can do it. Especially without Aslan being there with us."
"Well." Edmund started with the shrug. "Aslan did trust it to your hands and these people are looking up to you. So its up to you now."
"I know." Peter said, as he finally turned his gaze from the ceiling to his little brother.
Peter then moved his own blanked off him and sat up from his bed before he looked at Edmund again.
"But what if we loose the fight? What if we fail? What if I fail?" Peter said worriedly.
"Then we have to make sure we don't." Edmund said, sounding like his words were said more in the manner of telling a joke to lighten the mood than boost his big brother's morale and confidence in himself.
Peter frowned at his brother, as this was not time for the jokes.
"Be serious, Edmund. There is more at stake to me than just the fate of Narnia itself." Peter said, chiding his brother lightly. "You told me earlier that I shouldn't underestimate the Witch's power after you have seen yourself what she is capable of, and without Aslan I feel like we're just being served to her on a platter."
Edmund grimaced at the folly of his poor choice of words, before he felt the shivers running down his back when he recalled what had happened to Mr. Tumnus, that Christmas party, and other Narnians at the riverbank earlier.
Peter let another miserable sigh and put his hands over his eyes.
"What if something like that happens to you? Or to Susan? Or to Lucy? What if I fail to protect anyone or you? What if I fail to keep the promise I made to mom to keep you all safe? What if I fail... all of these people? What if I fail entire Narnia? And Aslan?"
Edmund could feel his brother's troubles. Even though he wasn't put into charge of the army, he still shared Peter's burden and responsibility over the fate of Narnia. And the tomorrow battle did trouble him as much as it did Peter.
Edmund stood up from his bed and walked to Peter's side, before he put his hand over his brother's shoulder.
"Peter. Listen to me. You're not in this alone." Edmund said sincerely.
His brother's gently touch and sincere words made Peter to look up at Edmund as he gave Peter an encouraging smile.
"There's an army out there. Army ready to fight for their freedom." Edmund started as he pointed towards the flaps of the pavilion. "And they are sworn to follow you."
"But..." Peter tried to say, but Edmund overspoke them.
"And Aslan has a faith in you... and so do I." Edmund finished.
Peter looked up at Edmund... and smiled at his brother, feeling a newfound boost of confidence within himself thanks to his support and encouraging words.
A week ago, he and Edmund were constantly at each others throats and couldn't stand each other, with Peter disapproving his brother's childish, selfish and mean behavior and Edmund returning in favor by despising his older brother's authory and his hard attitude on him, which could never have made it possible for the two of them to work together.
But now, everything they've been through since they stepped through and out of that wardrobe into Narnia and got separated for a while on their own little misadventures, it's all shaped them into who they are now and led them both to this very moment where they'd be working together to save not only themselves but both Narnia and its inhabitants.
Peter was proud of Edmund that he had matured into the kind of brother he could now rely on in times like this and would stand by him tomorrow no matter what.
And Edmund was happy that Peter was finally both listening to him and trusting in him, and proud of himself for managing to boost up his confidence to take the charge.
However, Peter's face quickly morphed into the confused frown when something came back to his mind... particularly Edmund mumbling something to be his fault.
"So what were you talking about, Ed? What is your fault?" Peter asked gently.
However, Edmund did not want to share with Peter his disturbing thoughts that Aslan had only managed to save his life from the Witch by offering himself as a sacrifice on the Stone Table so that Narnia would not have to be destroyed even if he himself lived.
The truth about such of tragedy would only destroy Peter's newfound confidence and determination to fight the Witch for Narnia, unless he had somehow realized it himself after that ominous thunderclap like he did, and he himself didn't even want to think about it himself due to his own guilt and shame over it.
"Nothing. Nothing." Edmund quickly said, before without another word he turned towards his bed and went back to sleep, his back turned to Peter.
Peter looked at his brother with puzzlement, but eventually decided not to pressue him on the matter. He just lied back down to his bed and fell asleep.
###
Meanwhile, a little farther south of the camp, the White Witch, with the wand in her hand, was leading her army through the woods, with the mace-wielding Minotaur General, Ginarrbrik, who wielded both his dagger and his whip, and Snowstorm in his anthropomorphic form, were all walking by their Queen's side.
Although it was an army, it wasn't similar compared to Aslan's own. It was rather a motley and unruly horde of monsters, armed to the teeth, carrying banners depicting a white snowflake on pitch black cloth, and overall driven by the bloodthirsty desire to destroy their Queen's enemies down to the last soldier.
Ahead of the Witch and her army was walking a large pack of wolves in either their normal or anthropomorphic forms, accompanied by the few Werewolves. The wolf-creatures sniffed the forest floor here and there, following the scent trails of Aslan's army and the children they had detected on the outskirts of the Stone Table, heading north and towards the Fords of Beruna.
But as they approached Beruna, the Witch took into account both the potential enemy scouts patrolling these woods for their movements, and the risk of them losing the element of surprise should the scouts spot them too early and alert their enemy of their coming long before they could even reach the fords.
However, that didn't matter to the Witch, for she did not even bother to command her noisy troops to remain silent - or even as quiet as they were able to - during of their march.
Before long they arrived at the foot of the southern ridge of the Valley of Beruna, but instead of marching into the valley through the wooded entrance, they began to crept uphill all the way to the top of the ridge.
There they made their first contact with the enemy in the form of three of their guards: the Centaur, anthropomorphic thrush and Satyr, who were positioned on top of this ridge to watch over the valley below and the woods in the other side.
However, the three guards had turned their backs to the woods and looked over the valley - and in addition, they were too tired from their long night watch, except perhaps the Centaur - that they never noticed the Witch's army silently approaching them from behind until it was too late.
The right ear of the Centaur carrying the torch in one hand and the sword in another twitched at the multiple low but rapidly approaching footsteps behind them and whipped around, holding his torch out and his sword up. The Centaur frowned from surprise upon seeing the front lines of enemy standing right there, with in the dark the gleaming white Witch in middle of the rabble, grinning at them wickedly.
"It's her! They're here!" the Centaur neighed aloud.
This got the attentions of both the thrush and the Satyr before they gasped - or chirped frantically in the thrush's case - from surprise and horror upon seeing the enemy creatures and the Witch herself standing there behind them like having appeared out of nowhere.
The thrush tried to change back into a normal bird form to fly and alert the camp below and the Satyr tried to reach for his horn to sound the alarm, while the Centaur tried to buy them some time by turning to face the Witch with the intent to charge at her.
Unfortunately, the Witch was much faster than anyone of them was.
With the whip of her wand, and following the bright beam of light that errupted out of the wand's head and hit the guards, silhouetting their bodies, there stood afterwards a three still and lifeless stone statues in the place of the guards: The stone Centaur was petrified just when he was about to gallop towards the Witch with his stoned sword raised up and the fire from his stoned torch extinguished, the stone thrush was only halfway through his transformation, and the stone Satyr had almost managed to put the horn to his lips before being turning to stone.
Satisfied with her evil deed, the Witch and her army walked past the stoned guards - with her soldiers sneering, laughing and mocking them as they walked past their stoned forms - up to the edge of the ridge and peered down into the valley where Aslan's camp stood in the feet of the northern ridge.
Observing from up here, the Witch could see that her enemies were on alert and there were guards on watch here and there around the camp. She assumed that they were expecting their arrival soon, probably before or at least at dawn without a doubt, yet so far they were unaware of their presence and the gruesome fates of three of their guards.
But it didn't matter to the Witch either.
She laughed quietly, yet mockingly at her enemies for their "best" preparations and attempts to oppose her. From her view, their army was so small compared to her own that it felt like those "human vermin and all the traitors" were rather served to her on the plate.
It indeed wouldn't take long from her to crush them all, and then claim Narnia as hers forever.
"Hoo-hoo! They're expecting us, Your Majesty... but they don't know when or where we'll strike. Hoo-hoo!" Snowstorm stated as he looked down at the camp.
"We should attack them now while most of them are still asleep, my lady." the Minotaur suggested gruffly, impatiently waiting for orders while tapping his mace against his palm.
"Yes. They'll never see us coming if we attack them under the cover of darkness." Ginarrbrik suggested with the devilish grin on his face.
"NO!" the Witch said, quickly throwing her minions' suggestions aside. "We wait until dawn, then we shall destroy them once and for all."
Ginarrbrik, Snowstorm and the Minotaur general stared at the Witch for a moment in confusion. They had the perfect opportunity to attack now that Aslan's army was not yet ready for their arrival, and the Witch wanted to delay the attack dill the daybreak.
"But my Queen, we have the element of surprise. We'd destroy them before they even knew what hit them." Minotaur pointed out.
"He is right. Hoo-hoo! If we wait here until morning, we will be spotted by their scouts and they'd have time to prepare for a counterattack. Hoo-hoo!" Snowstorm reasoned.
"So why give them such of chance?" Ginarrbrik questioned.
"We'll win this war nonetheless." the Witch told them simply. "Nothing can save them now that the Big Cat lies dead!"
She believed that now that she had gotten rid of Aslan, the only great adversary who could stand in her way, and her enemies' best and only hope of defeating her, it no longer mattered what methods they used to win the battle, for those children and the Narnians wouldn't survive anyway without him.
"General!" Witch called without turning to face the Minotaur but keeping her gaze at the camp down below. "Deploy your troops all over the ridge. Send some our people to mount guards and secure the river. Kill any scout and guard you come across. No word gets in and no one gets out when we'll strike."
"And the prisoners, my Queen?" Minotaur asked.
"I have no interest in prisoners. We'll kill them all." the Witch said coldly as she instructed the general to kill every last Narnian, whether a soldier, a non-combatant or a small child.
The Minotaur snorted with sadistic glee, before he left from the Witch's side to carry out her orders.
"And the rest of you, rest and prepare for battle at dawn." the Witch told to the rest of her army. "However short it may be."
Then the Witch raised her wand and both her hands high in the air and began to laugh both triumphtantly and maliciously.
"WHAT A GLORIOUS DAY TOMORROW SHALL BE!" the Witch declared, before the head of her want began to glow brightly like the star.
The glow in the Witch's wand then quickly vanished, but at the same time both the Witch, Ginarrbrik, and her entire army had suddenly vanished too, leaving the entire southern ridge completely empty, with no one or anything to be seen except the three statues standing there.
But if you look closely, you could see hundreds of moving footprints on the ground all over the southern ridge.
The Witch had used her magic, somewhat similar to what she had previously used to avoid Aslan's forces when they had arrived to rescue Edmund from her, to turn her army into invisibile to her enemies eyes to maintain their element of surprise before the battle started.
###
Meanwhile, back at the Stone Table.
Susan, Lucy, and Chirp had been hiding in a bush as the White Witch's forces rushed past them, and they remained in their hiding place even after the last of the monstrous soldiers had passed them and disappeared into the thickets behind them, not daring to come out, not until the woods was completely silent again.
Then they cautiously peeked out of the bush, looking around to make sure that it was finally safe to come out of hiding.
And then, once they were out of the bush, the girls and Chirp turned to look towards the Stone Table.
They walked slowly through the entrance to the clearing and then continued uphill to the top of the Stone Table's hill. And as they go, the storm clouds began to disperse in the sky, revealing a bright moon - that was already getting low - that shone its bright light onto the Stone Table.
And there the form of the Great Lion lied dead and in his bonds. His face was frozen into a look that looked like he was in agony than in peace, and the golden glow that had shone on him since his and the children's first met was gone, leaving his body a lifeless greyish brown.
Miserable, the girls and Chirp climbed onto the Table and knelt beside Aslan's large head and looked upon the Great Lion with their eyes welling with tears.
In her mind, Lucy thought that maybe she could do something to help him, even against all the odds, and absentmindedly reached for her cordial hanging from her neck and took it off, before she opened it and held it close to Aslan's mouth to pour a single drop there.
However, Susan, catching on what Lucy was going to do, gently caught her arm, snapping Lucy out of her thoughts and making her to look up at her big sister, confused.
"It's no use. He's gone." Susan told her softly.
"But... But Father Christmas said... he said this can heal anything." Lucy protested.
"Chirp, chirp! Only any wound, he said. But what is already dead it cannot heal. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp reminded solemnly.
Chirp's words and the bitter truth in them hit Lucy like a cold knife stabbed in the heart, as she recalled Father Christmas never saying her cordial being able to revive dead.
Upon realizing that there was nothing to be done to save Aslan, Lucy despondently put aside her useless cordial.
Lucy looked long time down at Aslan's still and lifeless face and felt like she was choking on the lumps in her throat as she weeped softly. She then reached out to him and gently put her hands over his cold face, before she bent over Aslan's head and rested her own head over Aslan's forehead, weeping into his fur, and fondly stroked stroked his muzzle with her hand and fingers.
Susan scooped into her hand some of what was left of Aslan's beautiful mane that was lying on the table beside his head. She squeezed her fingers tightly around of it and lifted her hands over her mouth as she mourned the Great Lion, with tears pouring down her own cheeks.
Chirp let out a low and mournful chirping sounds and kept his head hung down, mourning his king.
The girls cried in utter loneliness and silence, and they cried till they could cry no more.
Lucy then lifted her head up and cried more when she saw the muzzle was still there, strapped up over Aslan's face.
"I can't bear the look of that horrible muzzle. Can't we take it off?" Lucy said.
The girls and Chirp then set to try to take the muzzle off. And after a some work at it, for their fingers were cold and trembling from sorrow and previous shock, they succeeded in removing it from Aslan's face.
"I wonder could we untie him as well?" said Susan presently.
The girls and Chirp then set to try to untie his bonds, but no matter how much they pulled and tried to loosen the cords, they could make nothing of the knots.
"Mean things! They've drawn them so tight out of sheer spite!" Lucy cried bitterly. "We'll never make then undone!"
"We must!" Susan insisted. "Keep trying!"
The girls tried and tried again and again, but nothing came of it. The cords and knots still remained tight. Even Chirp couldn't get his beak between the knots to loosen up them, and his talons weren't strong enough to cut the cords.
"It's no use!" Lucy cried as she finally gave up from trying to untie him, before she turned away from Aslan's body and leapt off the Stone Table, running to the edge of the hillside.
There, utterly defeated, Lucy burst out crying again and burried her face into her hands. She had never before felt so miserable, so lonely, so hopeless, and so horrified until now.
Susan and Chirp, who had stopped trying to free Aslan from his bonds as well, walked over to Lucy. Susan gently wrapped her arms around her little sister before pulling her closer, hugging her comfortingly, and letting her to cry into her shoulder until she had no more tears left in her, while Chirp gently stroked Lucy's back with his wings' soft feathers in effort to comfort her.
The three of them remained to stand there in silence, grieving together in the night's dead calmness and huddled closer of each other, for the air around them was getting colder and coldLucywhich made the girls and Chirp to shiver, but Lucy hardly noticed this.
However, soon the girls and Chirp began to hear a lot of tiny squeaking that broke the silence. Chirp was the first one to pay attention to it and saw some tiny movement going on in the grass at their feet.
Susan and Lucy took no interest in this at first, as for to them nothing really mattered now, until the strange squeaking started to get even louder enough to forcefully get their attentions, and they looked down at their feet and saw through their tears a little gray things.
"UGH!" Susan gasped, repulsed, when she and Lucy realized what these things were. "THE MICE!"
The mice, dozens and dozens, even hundreds of tiny field mice, moved past the girls without paying much of attention to them. The girls and Chirp followed them and saw as the tiny creatures climbed up the upright stones of the stone Table and moved about on Aslan's body.
"A horrid little mice crawling over him!" Susan cried.
She immediately left from Lucy's and Chirp's side and climbed back onto the Table, where she instantly raised her hand to frighten them away.
"Go away, you little beasts!" Susan demanded and kept trying to scare them off.
Lucy and Chirp immediately joined to Susan's side, but once they got there, Lucy noticed something odd about the mice's behavior as they crawled over Aslan's body and peered more closely to see what they were doing.
"Wait!" Lucy said and quickly beckoned Susan to stop. "Can't you see what they're doing?"
Both Susan and Chirp bent down and stared: In the moonlight, the girls and Chirp could see the masses of mice chewing through the ropes with which the Great Lion wasl bound to the Table, while some other mice were gnawing through the knots.
"They're nibbling away at the cords!" Susan realized, stunned.
"They must be friendly mice." Lucy said, before she turned to Chirp. "Are these Talking Mice, Chirp?"
"Chirp, chirp! No. They are just mice without the gift of speech or ability to switch between the forms. Chirp, chirp! There have no been Talking Mice in Narnia ever since the beginning. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp explained to them.
Taking this information in, Lucy turned back to the mice and looked at the small creatures with pity for them thinking it'll do some good untying him.
"Poor little things. They don't realise that... that Aslan is dead." Lucy said sadly.
Thinking of Aslan's death again got Lucy to break down in tears once more, and she turned away from Aslan's body. Susan instantly put her arm over her grieving little sister's shoulder and pulled her closer to her, letting Lucy to sob into her shoulder, before she somberly led her away from the Stone Table - with Chirp following closely behind of the girls - leaving the mice to gnaw through the rest of Aslan's bonds.
The girls and Chirp, however, did not wander far off from the Stone Table and Aslan's body, instead, the girls sat down at the foot of a tree growing on the edge of Stone Table's hill and leaned against it to rest, with their eyes on Aslan's body. Chirp positioned himself on top of one of the pilars in his normal bird form to keep watch over the area for any possible danger.
Hours passed by, during of which the moon finally set behind the horizon and whole area around the Stone Table's hill fell under the pitch-blackness, with only the stars glowing in the sky above.
But another hour later, the stars began to fade away as sky in the East began to dawn slowly but certainly.
It was quite definitely early morning now, not late night anymore.
And as the morning dawned more - even though the day woke up to quite cloudy and witish and rather chilly weather - the Stone Table's hill got a little less dark than it had been an hour ago. It was also a dead quiet again, as there were no longer the squeaking of the mice or them gnawing of the ropes.
Susan and Lucy, who were still resting against the tree at the edge of the hill, looked over at the Stone Table and Aslan's body.
They saw that the mice had already crept away, but not before they had gnawed away every last of the ropes, freeing Aslan's body from the Table.
And as the light grew in the sky, they could see that even in death, Aslan looked more like himself now that ropes were gone, and that his dead face, despite its pained expression, looked more noble than ever, even without his mane.
The girls then got slowly up, and instantly shivered as they felt colder than they had been all night, and wrapped their cloaks and arms tightly around of themselves to stay warm.
"I'm so cold." Lucy said with the shiver.
"So am I." Susan said, shivering as well.
The girls decided to walk about a bit and soon left from the Stone Table's hill and into the woods.
Up in one of the pilars, Chirp looked solemnly down at the girls as they disappeared into the woods. The robin decided to give the girls some time alone and remained there at the top of the pilar to watch over the area and Aslan's body.
As Susan and Lucy walked through the woods, holding each others' hands, they could hear in the wood behind them a bird giving a chuckling sound, before another bird answered to it. Soon there were birds singing all over the place. It had been so still for hours and hours that it slightly startled them, but otherwise they paid no mind to it but kept walking.
"Should we be getting back to camp, if there's going to be trouble?" Lucy asked quietly as she remembered that their disappearance has certainly already been noticed at this point, and that the enemy was already making its move towards it.
"But we can't just leave him lying there." Susan protested lightly as she felt it was wrong to leave Aslan here without protection, although she did think that what was the point of them just staying here to guard his body when there was a war going on and they were needed there alongside their brothers.
Those thoughts, however, were pushed aside when Susan felt her legs aching. "Oh, my legs are almost giving away. I feel so tired." she moaned.
"Well, we have been up all night." Lucy pointed out.
The girls then arrived to the edge of the hill (the same edge where Aslan and Peter had been standing together over a week ago) and looked out towards the horizon.
The country all looked dark grey in the first stage of the dawn, but beyond, at the very end of the world, the sea showed pale. The sky began to turn from blue to the purple and then to the red, and soon the red turned into the gold along the line where the sea and the sky met and very slowly up came the edge of the sun.
That was then when the girls saw for the first time the castle of Cair Paravel standing where the sea and land met. At first it was like a grim-looking dark gray figure that towered menacingly over the trees, just like the Witch's house, even if they hadn't seen it yet.
"Cair Paravel." Lucy mumbled quietly as she looked over at the castle in wonderment. "Do you suppoe we'll ever reach it?"
Susan didn't answer though, for she didn't know.
When the first rays of the sunrise hit the castle's high walls and towers, the castle began to glimmer again, albeit faintly.
And as the sun rose higher and higher from behind the horizon, the sky around it turned into bright gold, and everything else, the sea, Cair Paravel and the whole country changed into the rich and vibrant colors despite last night's tragedy.
Suddenly, at that moment, the girls jumped when they heard from behind them a loud noise—a great cracking, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giant's plate. It was loud enough to scare all the birds into flight from the nearby trees.
KA-BOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!
"What was that?!" Susan cried as she and Lucy turned around to the direction of the Stone Table.
Listening closely, they could hear from behind the woods Chirp's rather frantic chirping that was calling their names.
"Chirp, chirp! Susan! Lucy! Come back! Come back! Chirp, chirp!"
"Something awful is happening!" Susan realized.
"They're doing something worse to him!" Lucy panicked, thinking that the Witch's troops had came back to further disgrace Aslan's body. "Come on!" she yelled and turned to run back to the Table, with Susan following right behind her.
The girls ran as fast as they could back to the Stone Table hill, where a surprising sight awaited them.
Chirp, who was back in his anthropomorphic form, stood beside the Stone Table jumping, chirping and flapping his wings frantically, as the Table stood there broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no sign of Aslan.
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" Lucy cried as she and Susan ran to Chirp's side to look at the cracked Table.
"What happened?!" Susan asked from Chirp. "Where's Aslan?!"
"Chirp, chirp! I don't know!" Chirp said. "The moment I turned my back to the Table, there was this loud crack behind me! Chirp, chirp! And when I looked back, the Table had cracked and Aslan was gone! Chirp, chirp!"
"What have they done?!" Lucy sobbed. "Why they couldn't have left his body alone?"
"Chirp, chirp! No!" Chirp said in denial, immediately catching on what Lucy was thinking. "No! It was not them. It was not the Witch's troops. I didn't see or hear them coming until this happened. Chirp, chirp!"
Lucy and Susan looked at Chirp, taken aback by the robin's rebut of their thoughts that the Witch's army was the culprit.
"But then who has done it?!" Susan cried, confused and lost. "What is it? Is it more magic?"
"YES!" said a great booming voice before them. "IT IS MORE MAGIC!"
The girls and Chirp looked up, and had to cover their eyes with their hands/wings from the sun shining directly in their faces, until they could make out a huge dark silhouette standing against the sunlight, walking towards them.
But when the silhouette stepped in front of the sun, the girls and Chirp gasped in wide-eyed surprise.
And there stood Aslan himself, shining in the heavenly light of the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before and shaking his mane which had miraculously grown back. The Great Lion smiled fondly at the girls and Chirp as they stared at him in astonishment.
"ASLAN!" cried both girls.
"CHIRP, CHIRP! YOUR HIGHNESS! CHIRP, CHIRP!" Chirp chirped overjoyed.
"You're not dead, Aslan! You're alive!" Lucy cried, crying the tears of joy.
Susan, however, hesitated a bit. While she was glad to see Aslan again, he couldn't help but be a bit terrified when the certain thought came into her mind.
"You're not a—?" Susan asked in a shaky voice, though she couldn't bring herself to say the word "ghost".
"Do I look like it?" Aslan said.
Lucy didn't doubt it a moment. "Oh, you're real, you're real! Oh, Aslan!" she cried.
The girls were so overjoyed to see Aslan alive that they immediately ran around the Stone Table - Lucy from the Table's right and Susan from the Table's right side - towards him, while Chirp jumped/flew over the cracked Table. Upon reaching Aslan, both girls flung themselves upon him and wrapped their arms around of Aslan's head and mane. Only Chirp held himself humbly back from doing so, but that did not meant that he couldn't sing his birdsong out of sheer joy towards his king. Aslan chuckled and nuzzled his golden head against the girls and licked their foreheads, first Lucy and then Susan. The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over them.
"Oh, children. I feel my strength coming back to me." Aslan said joyfully. "I feel it is time for the roar! You'd better put your fingers in your ears!"
Excited but heeding his warning, both girls then backed up to Chirp's side to give Aslan some room and covered their ears with their hands, while Chirp did the same with hings wings.
Aslan then breathed deep in, before he opened his huge mouth and let out the roar.
"HAA-A-ARRH! HAA-A-ARRH! HAA-A-ARRH! HAA-A-ARRH!"
As he roared, his face became so terrible that the girls and Chirp did not dare to look at it. And they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the booming blast of his roar as grass bends in a meadow before the wind.
The roar kept echoing in the air for some time even after Aslan had finally ceased roaring and closed his mouth.
The girls and Chirp then uncovered their ears as the roar faded away and they turned back to Aslan, and the Great Lion turned back to them.
As they stared at Aslan, Susan, Lucy and Chiro's overjoyed astonishment turned into a confusion, for either of them or Chirp couldn't put into this any logical explanation, for it should be impossible that Aslan was still alive after...
"Aslan? Could we ask you... how did it happen?" Lucy started hesitatingly.
Chirp too wanted to know. "Chirp, chirp! Yes. How is this possible? Chirp, chirp!"
"We saw you... on the Stone Table. Tied and... And we saw the Knife... and the Witch." Susan said, recalling all the horrors they witnessed the last night.
Aslan nodded his large head solemnly. "Yes. The Witch knows the Deep Magic, but there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But had she looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time ever began, she would have known that there was a different incantation: When a willing victim who had committed no treachery offers his life in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would be denied."
"Oh. I see." Lucy said, understanding Aslan's every word, but they left her slightly angry at the Great Lion. For they witnessed his death and were left utterly heartbroken, yet the things turned out like this... and most of all, Aslan knew this would happen. "We saw her kill you and we cried our heads off, and you knew all along you'll be alright."
"Now, now, Daughter of Eve." Aslan lightly chided. "I knew of the old incantation, but it has never been put into the test, until now. Even I wasn't entirely sure this would happen."
The girls, especially Lucy, were taken aback that even Aslan, while knowing about this all along, was never sure that he would be resurrected afterwards as described in the incantation, hence why he had been so sad and downhearted yesterday.
"You took that risk to save Edmund?" Susan said as everything finally dawned to her.
"Chirp, chirp! And not only Edmund, but all of Narnia as well. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp gasped upon remembering the Witch's rant about the destruction of Narnia if Edmund is not sacrificed as a traitor.
Aslan's sacrifice upon the Stone Table in Edmund's stead, however, hadn't only saved the Son of Adam's life but also appeased the Deep Magic so that the whole land of Narnia will be spared... and at the same time ensured that the prophecy gets another chance to be fulfilled without the intervention to it such as this.
"Yes." Aslan confirmed, before his gentle face turned serious. "And now... to business."
The girls and Chirp immediately caught up with the meaning behind Aslan's words.
"Chirp, chirp! Yes! The Witch and her people are moving towards our camp! Chirp, chirp!"
"But she doesn't know you're still alive, so we have the element of surprise." Susan said, realizing that as long as the Witch was unaware of Aslan's resurrection, and with her guard down and her focus fully on the coming war, they had a chance to get her by surprise.
Lucy immediately drew her dagger as she turned to Aslan to show the Great Lion that she was ready to fight for Narnia, albeit against the Father Christmas' wishes against it.
"We've gotta help them." Lucy said determinedly.
Aslan chuckled softly, admiring Lucy's bravery in spite of her age, before the Great Lion raised his large paw over Lucy's hand holding the dagger and gently lowered it.
"We will, dear one, but not alone." Aslan told them. "We must get reinforcements. Without the Battle of Beruna fords will not go well."
"But we have too little time. Where do we get reinforcements from in time?" Susan asked, as it was logically impossible to gather another army big enough to match the Witch's own in such of short time and by the end of the day it will be too late to join the battle.
"There is a one way." Aslan told them. "And for that, we can thank for the Witch herself."
Before the confused girls and Chirp could question this, Aslan was quick to speak over their own words. "Come. We have a long journey to go. You must ride on me. You too, Chirp, for I can go faster than what you can fly."
Susan and Lucy gasped from excitment that they were going to ride on Aslan's back. Chirp too stared at Aslan with huge surprise that he had been permitted to ride on the Great Lion, albeit for logically reasonable reasons.
And as Aslan crouched down, the children climbed onto his warm, golden back and Susan sat first holding on tightly to his mane and Lucy sat behind holding on tightly to Susan. Chirp changed into his normal robin form and perched on Aslan's shoulder, holding as tight as he could to stay still.
With the girls and Chirp securely seated on his back, Aslan rose to his feet with a great heave, causing the girls to gasp lightly in surprise as Aslan effortlessly lifted them off the ground.
And then, with the great leap, Aslan shot off into the air and flew over the rocks and the thick of the forest surrounding the Stone Table, that was left behind on top of the hill for the next centuries.
The girls, and even Chirp, looked on in wide-eyed bewilderment, for it almost looked like Aslan could fly without the wings in the air!
###
Meanwhile, back in Aslan's camp, every Narnian had already woken up in the morning twilight and began preparations for the coming battle today: Swords, spears, shields, bows, and arrows were passed to the rows of soldiers in the armory while some were putting on helmets, chainmails, and breastplates.
Once the soldiers were ready, they gathered around the pavilion, where Peter and Edmund were having a war council with Flamestorm and the few lieutenants selected from among the Narnians: These were Mr. Beaver, Aslan's Satyrs and leopards, Pegasus, black bull, Dwarf archer, Pearl, Philip and great dane dog.
They were all standing around a table on which was spread a map of Beruna fords. A small banners were placed on the map depicting a posing lion - which was them - and several other banners were placed on the edge of the map depicting a snowflake in black - which was the enemy. Banners representing them were first positioned in the feet of the northern ridge as Peter looked over the map, pondering about the best way to fight the Witch.
They didn't have time to start a proper discussion of the battle strategies before their attention was soon drawn to the screeching call of the bald eagle, who was previously left to keep an eye on the woods between the Table and Beruna.
The eagle soared majestically in the air from behind the southern ridge and circled above the camp and the pavilion, before he landed gracefully to the grass in front of the pavilion. After landing, the eagle then changed into his anthropomorphic form before respectfully bowing down to Peter.
"Forgive me for being late, Your Highness. I came as quickly as I could once the coast was clear." the eagle said.
"It's okay." Peter responded before he get down to business. "Report?"
"The Witch and her army is on the move, Your Highnesses. They're heading this way." the eagle reported breathlessly. "The number of her people is far more greater than our own."
Peter was taken aback by such of reports, before he turned his gaze to before the pavilion gathered number of soliders. While discussing with Aslan on the top of thje southern ridge last night, he had beared the witness to the fact that their people wasn't very large, and he could only imagine how big the Witch's army was.
Peter nodded his thanks to the eagle nonetheless before he turned to Flamestorm. "How many able-bodied soldiers you think we have?" Peter asked.
"About two hundred and fifty soldiers, plus a few dozen last minute volunteers." Flamestorm informed.
Peter frowned at Centaur in dismay. That's less than three hundred soldiers against who knows how many of the Witch's soldiers? At least a way more than what they had, according to the eagle. Two or three times larger, or even larger than that?
"That's not much." Peter lamented.
"Remember, my lord..." Flamestorm called, trying to inspire the boy when he felt Peter was losing hope of winning this battle. "Battles aren't won by numbers alone."
"But I bet they help." Peter responded solemnly.
Peter took then looked down at the map again, taking in every detail of the battlefield, before he turned to the rest of his chosen lieutenants.
"Alright. First of, we're all positioned here in the feet of the northern ridge, and that the enemy is approaching us from the south, and the only ways to enter the Valley of Beruna are either the western passage or over the southern ridge, depending on whether the Witch chooses to attack us directly from the valley or with the high ground advantage from the ridge. And the only way across the river is through the fords." Peter began. "My earlier idea was to occupy the north side of the river and lead the defense at the fords, but since it is too late to use this plan, we must think of another plan."
"With her host so large, she can easily attack us from two fronts." the eagle said.
"If so, she may try and draw out forces from the river with one half of her army and then take over the fords with the second half, cutting off our escape to the last defensive point." Pegasus pointed out.
"Then we should protect the river and the fords at all cost, or else we'll be surrounded from all sides." Mr. Beaver said.
"And speaking of the high ground advantage, she would either position her Black Dwarf archers all over the ridge to shoot the volleys upon us." the Dwarf archer said.
"She would, of course, use the ridge as her command post and lead her army from there." one of Aslan's leopards said as he pointed his paw up at the top of the southern ridge.
"While sitting out the battle herself like the coward she is." the bull said, letting out the snort with the sheer contempt.
"No." Flamestorm said. "The Witch might be many things, but a coward she is not. She will be leading her troops at the head."
"How-how! Then maybe we should go for her directly. Without her, her forces will be easily rounded up and destroyed despite their numerical advantage. How-how!" the great dane suggested.
"Don't forget she still has her wand." Flamestorm reminded strictly. "Getting close to her with that thing in her possession won't be easy."
"And even then, she will have her strongest soldiers as her bodyguards to prevent us to get to her." one of Aslan's Satyrs' pointed out.
"So, what are we going to do?" Pearl questioned, before she turned to Peter. "Your Highness?"
By now, Peter had taken in everything the others had said - the possibility of a two-front battle, the Witch targeting the river and the fords to prevent their escape, the high-ground advantage, the Witch leading her army in the front instead of sitting the battle out in the sidelines, and the risks and results of going after her directly. With all of that in mind, Peter looked down to the map again, Peter looked at the map again, taking note of all the places in Beruna Valley that could work to both theirs and the Witch's advantage, while thinking hard to hatch some sort of battle plan based on the others' words.
"So, the Witch might have an high-ground advantage if she attacks from the southern ridge, and that she'll be targeting the fords to cut off our escape. But we also have our own high-ground advantage with the northern ridge where we could position our own archers and the flying creatures. And Mr. Beaver might be right that we need to protect the fords to secure our own escape to more defensible position if needed." Peter said to himself.
Peter then turned to his lieutenants. "I'd say the river is now the most important thing to defend, not the valley as a whole or either the camp, which is why we need to hold our positions at the fords and secure our own retreat to the northern side of the river at all cost."
"First we need to sent all those unable to fight to the woods in the other side of the river to safety." Edmund pointed out, for if the camp was not now the most important thing to defend, then they had to send the refugees to the safety from the battle on the other side of the river.
"Yes. And then we need to spread our roces to hold positions both at the foot of the northern ridge and at the fords." Peter said, drawing a line with his finger to the map, that reached from the fords to the foot of the northern ridge. "And we'll be position the bulk of our army here, at the foot of the northern ridge."
The Narnian lieutenants looked at each other in puzzlement that Peter wanted to move most of their forces to defend the northern ridge rather than the river.
"You want to defend the ridge? But I thought we were supposed to defend the river at all cost just like you said, Your Highness." the Dwarf said as he stepped forward. "Should the most of our army be defending the fords instead, or which one you think she'll be going after first? The river of the camp?"
"Most likely me and Edmund." Peter said with grim voice.
"Taking over the river and the fords is only meant to trap all of us in the valley, but the Witch's main goal is to get two of us, which is why I believe that she'll be coming after me and Edmund with all available forces she can spare." Peter clarified.
"This way we can force the Witch to split her army in half and fight us on two fronts. She'll be coming after our main army with the bulk of her own and have the rest to take the river from us." Edmunbd deduced.
"And if the forces defending the river can dispatch the Witch's troops sent against them, they can then attack the flank of the Witch's main army, further forcing her to split her troops and fight us in two fronts." Mr. Beaver said, putting two and two together.
"While still keeping our escape route across the river secured to the northern side and then make our stand at the fords. Yes." Peter added.
"That is a genious plan, my boy!" Mr. Beaver praised eagerly.
Flamestorm, however, had to disagree as he went through of Peter's plan. "Not quite, Beaver. Your Majesty? There is an obvious risk in that plan. The Witch might come after you and Edmund the most, we all know that, but she might as well send the bulk of her army to crush our forces defending the river and go after you with what she can spare before she comes at you with everything she got and crush you with one blow."
"I know, Flamestorm. I know the plan has such of risks, but we just have to go with it to keep the river secured and the Witch from sending her whole army to take it. Unless some of you have some better idea or any additional ideas which we can use to buy us more time, I cannot come up with any other plan."
"Buy us more time? For what?" the bull questioned.
"I don't know." Peter said honestly, shaking his head. "Maybe for Aslan to come back. While he told us that he won't be with us during the battle, he did tell me that our main goal is to prevent the Witch from reaching her House. To be honest, I don't know what he meant with that, but I think he knows what he is doing."
His lieutenants began to exchange the looks with one another while silently pondering over Peter's reasoning for his current plan. To them, it was either fairly reasonable or somewhat questionable that their future king's plan's ultimate goal was to wait for Aslan to come back and make his yet unknown move upon the Witch.
However, nobody of them noticed Edmund grimacing uncomfortably at Peter's mention of Aslan and his belief that Aslan will return, which made him feel even more awful due to being the only one to know that Aslan would never come back, and that he still had no heart to tell Peter or anyone around him that Aslan was gone, dead, killed by the Witch in his stead. He hated to keep them in the dark about this, but he didn't want Peter or the Narnians to lose their hope in this hour of need by simply telling them the truth.
After the moment, Flamestorm then spoke up and Peter turned to him, all the while both of them, as well as everybody else too,were still oblivious to Edmund's guilt-stricken behavior.
"Very well, Your Majesty. We'll go with your plan." Flamestorm said, snapping Edmund out of his thoughts.
The other lieutenants nodded their heads, fully accepting Peter's plan no matter how desperate or hopeless it might be.
Smiling, Peter nodded his head in gratitude to the Centaur and all the other of his lieutenants. "Thank you, all of you. But if any of you have anything to add into this plan, then let me hear them out and I'll consider them?"
Flamestorm, Mr. Beaver, Satyrs and leopards, Pegasus, bull, Dwarf archer, Pearl, Philip, great dane and the eagle gathered around and each one began to voice their own ideas to be added in Peter's plan.
Edmund, meanwhile, swiftly shook off his troubling thoughts and the sense of guilt over Aslan's death and his reluctance to reveal it to anyone out of his head and joined them to discuss about the last minute details of the plan.
TO BE CONTINUED...