Narnia fic: Carpetbaggers Chapter IV, Part 5 (2600 words)
Chapters I and II are here.
Chapter III and earlier parts of Chapter IV are here.
~
The Magpies were annoying. Chatterboxes, all of them, swarming and swirling around Peter and Susan until finally Peter put his fingers to his lips and gave the shrill whistle his father had taught him. The Magpies startled, bursting upwards in a storm of black and white feathers, and then under his eye, settled slowly down, until they clustered on the branches and boulders of the small clearing outside Tumnus' cave.
"I'm told that the Magpies are the traditional royal messengers of Narnia."
"Oh, that's right all right," said one of them, a bedraggled older male with only half a tail. "We carried the Kings' and Queens' word, all across Narnia, and my great-grand, he even went to Calormen once. We're the messengers."
"I have a job for you, then," said Peter, and tried to fix each of them with his gaze. Hoping that they could be trusted, inasmuch as anyone could be. No one is perfectly clean, king, said Rhea's voice in his head. He took out the paper he had labored over with Tumnus and Ed all morning, the list of names from Beruna. Some of them, at least, must be nearby, and some of them would surely come when he called. They had followed him into battle once before, hadn't they?
This is different. Aslan's not here.
Susan stirred beside him, as he hesitated, and spoke before he could summon the right words. "This is the message that we charge you to carry. The High King is raising a force to drive the White Witch's rebels out of Narnia for good. Protect your families, your friends, and your land: gather at the Ford of White Pines, and bring your arms. You are thus charged," she concluded, her voice firm as she met the eyes of each of the Magpies, "In the name of Aslan, son of the Emperor-Over-Sea."
When Susan had finished, the Magpies fluffed their wings and muttered. "Do you need it repeated?" she asked sharply, but the eldest bobbed in his place and said, "No, we have it, we have it, queen."
"Good." She turned and nodded to Peter, who lifted the paper and began to read.
"Carry this word to the Beavers of Beaversdam on the Great River. The Three Goats of Red Hill. Naussa the Panther, Spearfast the Centaur and her sons, Fleet-as-Wind the Cheetah..."
It wasn't a lot of names: they didn't have enough time to raise anywhere near as large an army as had fought at Beruna. It just needed to be large enough to do the job.
When he was done, he looked up at the Magpies. "Well? Do you know where you're going? Fly straight and safely, then." And they were gone in a rush, leaving behind a quiet clearing in the morning sun, and a few stray feathers.
"How long, do you think?" Susan asked, as they turned back towards the cave. Yesterday's sunshine had given way to a cooler day, with fast-moving clouds and gusts of wind that rattled the limbs of the pines. Peter hoped it didn't portend a storm.
Peter shrugged. "The closest ones may come today; the rest, maybe tomorrow or the day after. You and Ed should probably head out this afternoon to get ready for them."
The others were running their own errands while Susan and Peter met with the Magpies, but the kettle on the stove was still hot. Peter poured the tea while Susan began sorting through gear.
"Can I wear this, then?" she asked, and shook out Peter's leather jerkin with a laugh. It was too large for her, but she had nothing similar, no armor at all. He would rather go without himself, than see her so unprotected.
"I think you should," he said, and smiled at her, but it was strained.
"But not your sword," she said, half-joking, and Peter barked a laugh.
The morning crawled by. Peter drank three cups of tea, made up piles of equipment for each of them from their own supplies and a cache of ancient arms they found in a chest at the back of Tumnus' storeroom, and rehearsed Susan on the strengths and weaknesses of Narnian cavalry. "I hate waiting!" he finally burst out, and leaped up to go to the door again. "What's taking him so long?"
Susan looked up from the map she was studying. They had been trying to determine just where the rebels were gathered; it had to be a large enough open space for the Harpies to get into the air and the Ogres to keep from fighting one another, with access to water. And not too many Dryads nearby.
"They won't hurt him," she said calmly, although Peter saw the line between her eyebrows that marked some concern. "He's too valuable."
"So they could keep him as a hostage!" Edmund, captive again in that castle: it was just one of Peter's nightmares.
"Not if they honestly see the rebels as a threat," Susan pointed out, and sat back from the map, giving him her full attention. "Some of them must have been at Beruna, must realize how useful we--and Aslan's backing--can be."
"But that's a threat to them, too!" Why had Peter agreed to this plan?
She sighed, looking at him with affectionate frustration. She tapped on the table with the dagger she had been using as a map pointer. "But we're also a tool. Let them think they're using us--it's what we want them to do! And Peter--trust us to do our jobs."
He laughed, suddenly, staring at his cautious, well-behaved sister, sitting in a cave with a naked blade in her hand.
"What?" she asked.
He folded his arms and stared back at her. She wore tall boots with breeches and a rough woolen jerkin over a worn tunic: she looked like a pirate queen from the days of old, not a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. "You wouldn't have said that two months ago."
She raised an eyebrow, glanced down at the knife in her hand, and flipped it suddenly, so it spun in the air and then landed with a solid thump back in her hand. Lucy wasn't the only one who got knife lessons from Reedpuller. "No, I guess I wouldn't have."
Peter grinned, and then looked outside again. No sign of them. He was just no good at standing around.
"You should go now," Susan said, from behind him, and put a hand on his arm. "Someone needs to confirm that--" she waved back at the table, where the maps lay weighted down by Tumnus' family silver. "And I can send Rhea after you when she comes back. You'll go mad, waiting here."
He caught his breath; the prospect of striking out across the Narnian countryside, fording streams and climbing hills, completely alone for the very first time since they had stumbled through the wardrobe--it was impossibly tempting. And they did need the intelligence. Susan didn't say anything more, just watched his face, as he balanced his desperate need to move with an instinctive caution. He was the High King: he wasn't supposed to put himself in danger--except he was the High King: if he didn't put himself at risk, how could he ask anyone else to?
And with that, the decision was made. "All right," he said, and went to the side of the parlor, where they had piled all their equipment. He quickly picked out his pack, added a waterskin, the last of the dried mutton from the Centaurs, and some writing materials stolen from Edmund. His cloak was too bright; he traded the worn scarlet for Susan's weathered green, and slid one of Tumnus' ancient daggers into his boot.
He hugged Susan at the doorway, feeling ridiculously like a character in a film. The dagger at her waist dug into his ribs, and she laughed, before drawing his head down and kissing him on the forehead. She looked like she was going to say something serious, and then dimpled, and just said, "Don't get lost, Pete."
He snorted, clapping her on the shoulder like he would have Edmund. "Make sure you send Rhea on as soon as they return--I want to know exactly what they said." And he turned and jogged away into the wood, feeling more than anything else like it was his first day at a new school, or the first time he rode the train alone. His veins felt like they were buzzing with soda water; the wind fluttered the edge of his cloak; and a crow cried out, far overhead, as he struck out northwest, following the winding route of Lantern Creek.
*
So a quick scouting expedition turned into a twenty-or-so mile slog, when after successfully locating the rebels' camp and getting a rough head-count of their forces (too close, and too many, in that order), Peter picked up a follower on the way back to Tumnus' cave. Rhea hadn't found him: he forced himself to assume it was for legitimate, non-worrisome reasons. But it made things more difficult, since without her nose and ears he was having a hard time determining what, exactly, it was that was following him.
He had a suspicion the days were getting shorter, although without a watch he couldn't be sure. (He couldn't remember where his watch was: he thought maybe he'd left it in Cair Paravel, and had a mental image of it sitting on the chest in the girls' room where they'd left most of their English clothes.) It was colder than it had been this morning, and the scuddering clouds had become a solid ceiling of light and dark grey. It was almost definitely going to rain: Susan would be unhappy about fighting a battle in the mud.
This would be the third time he had tried to catch whatever it was that was following him. The first two times it had slipped away--around or past him, he wasn't sure--and he couldn't risk going any further with it on his trail. He suspected he could probably lose it if he cut west, into the steep and unforgiving canyons leading up into the mountains, but he was also sure that if he did, he would lose himself as well. So he had to handle it now, before he led it--whatever it was--right back to his siblings.
This time he decided he'd go for a classic--if it had worked for Robin Hood, it should work for King Peter, right?--and had found himself a great Oak with broad, spreading limbs. After laying an obvious track down to the creek's edge, he'd backtracked cautiously and scaled the tree, ending up crouched against the trunk on a branch that had seemed much wider when viewed from the safety of the ground.
It occurred to him, as he waited in the growing gloom (and growing discomfort), that this would be a damned foolish move if it was a cat that was tracking him. He shifted his weight, realized how hard it would be to draw Rhindon in a hurry like this, and carefully swiveled around until he could draw the sword. Then, of course, he was faced with the problem of how to stay in the tree with a large and heavy bastard blade in one hand. And how was he to get down quickly without falling on the sword? In the end, he sat astride the branch with the sword balanced crosswise in front of him, and hoped his enemy had Rhea's eyesight (but not her nose).
Peter had been walking, or running, or crawling, nearly all day, with hardly a stop to rest. So it was no surprise when he found himself dozing on the tree, and only woke with a jerk as he began to tip over sideways. Swinging an arm wildly, he righted himself, but just enough to see Rhindon slide sideways, pommel first. He made a grab for it, but not fast enough, and he was awake enough not to seize the blade with his bare hands. The sword fell, and Peter's eyes followed it, and it hit the ground--right in front of a shaggy grey creature, which leaped backwards in surprise.
Were-wolf! thought Peter, and then he realized he had overbalanced in his grab for the sword, and he was falling from the tree as well.
The next few moments were a jumble: he landed on his shoulder, on something that gave under him, and then the rest of his body hit the ground hard. "Ooph!"
Were-wolf, Peter reminded himself, and pushed himself up, looking for Rhindon. There was the blade, just a few feet away--and there was the Were-wolf's face, even closer. Peter scrabbled backwards, still on his hands and knees, and the Were-wolf lunged at him, snapping. He had no armor: the Were-wolf's teeth caught at his left shoulder and ripped through cloth and skin as though they were wet paper. The pain was shocking, but Peter couldn't stop moving or he would be dead. He flung himself sideways, rolling, and managed to get his feet under him.
There was nothing he could do about his shoulder right now, and Rhindon was out of reach, twelve feet away. A distance he could cover in two strides, were it not for the creature in his way.
"So this is what a Human tastes like," hissed the Were-wolf, in a voice that sounded like meat frying. "Thin and weak-blooded, like your Lion," it scoffed, and rising up on its hind legs, it leaped forward at him.
But now Peter had a blade in his hand, and he met it, stepping forward, dodging the swinging arms with their dirty claws, and ducking low to drive the dagger upwards. The Were-wolf was smarter than he had expected, though, and it slipped sideways, so the blade merely scored along its ribs. It was a messy wound, but not a dangerous one.
This had to end soon, Peter thought. Blood was flowing freely down his left arm, dripping on the dirt so he tracked bloody footprints across the ground as he stepped sideways. The Were-wolf wouldn't let him get any closer to Rhindon, though, and instead charged forward again with a savage snarl.
Peter couldn't afford to close with it: he wasn't nearly strong enough to wrestle this thing. But he remembered what his father had done once, when they were out tramping and a dog had charged them from behind a hedge. And Peter had played a lot of football. His kick took the Were-wolf hard in the abdomen, so hard he heard ribs crack, and the creature fell backwards with a howl. That was all it took: Peter staggered to Rhindon, swept up the blade and swung about, just in time to spit the Were-wolf on the tip of the sword. It died cursing him, or Aslan, he wasn't sure.
Leaving him alone and bloodied in the forest, with a shoulder that felt like it had been turned into mince, and a long walk home in the dark.
Perhaps he should have waited for Rhea to come back, after all.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.
Chapter III and earlier parts of Chapter IV are here.
~
The Magpies were annoying. Chatterboxes, all of them, swarming and swirling around Peter and Susan until finally Peter put his fingers to his lips and gave the shrill whistle his father had taught him. The Magpies startled, bursting upwards in a storm of black and white feathers, and then under his eye, settled slowly down, until they clustered on the branches and boulders of the small clearing outside Tumnus' cave.
"I'm told that the Magpies are the traditional royal messengers of Narnia."
"Oh, that's right all right," said one of them, a bedraggled older male with only half a tail. "We carried the Kings' and Queens' word, all across Narnia, and my great-grand, he even went to Calormen once. We're the messengers."
"I have a job for you, then," said Peter, and tried to fix each of them with his gaze. Hoping that they could be trusted, inasmuch as anyone could be. No one is perfectly clean, king, said Rhea's voice in his head. He took out the paper he had labored over with Tumnus and Ed all morning, the list of names from Beruna. Some of them, at least, must be nearby, and some of them would surely come when he called. They had followed him into battle once before, hadn't they?
This is different. Aslan's not here.
Susan stirred beside him, as he hesitated, and spoke before he could summon the right words. "This is the message that we charge you to carry. The High King is raising a force to drive the White Witch's rebels out of Narnia for good. Protect your families, your friends, and your land: gather at the Ford of White Pines, and bring your arms. You are thus charged," she concluded, her voice firm as she met the eyes of each of the Magpies, "In the name of Aslan, son of the Emperor-Over-Sea."
When Susan had finished, the Magpies fluffed their wings and muttered. "Do you need it repeated?" she asked sharply, but the eldest bobbed in his place and said, "No, we have it, we have it, queen."
"Good." She turned and nodded to Peter, who lifted the paper and began to read.
"Carry this word to the Beavers of Beaversdam on the Great River. The Three Goats of Red Hill. Naussa the Panther, Spearfast the Centaur and her sons, Fleet-as-Wind the Cheetah..."
It wasn't a lot of names: they didn't have enough time to raise anywhere near as large an army as had fought at Beruna. It just needed to be large enough to do the job.
When he was done, he looked up at the Magpies. "Well? Do you know where you're going? Fly straight and safely, then." And they were gone in a rush, leaving behind a quiet clearing in the morning sun, and a few stray feathers.
"How long, do you think?" Susan asked, as they turned back towards the cave. Yesterday's sunshine had given way to a cooler day, with fast-moving clouds and gusts of wind that rattled the limbs of the pines. Peter hoped it didn't portend a storm.
Peter shrugged. "The closest ones may come today; the rest, maybe tomorrow or the day after. You and Ed should probably head out this afternoon to get ready for them."
The others were running their own errands while Susan and Peter met with the Magpies, but the kettle on the stove was still hot. Peter poured the tea while Susan began sorting through gear.
"Can I wear this, then?" she asked, and shook out Peter's leather jerkin with a laugh. It was too large for her, but she had nothing similar, no armor at all. He would rather go without himself, than see her so unprotected.
"I think you should," he said, and smiled at her, but it was strained.
"But not your sword," she said, half-joking, and Peter barked a laugh.
The morning crawled by. Peter drank three cups of tea, made up piles of equipment for each of them from their own supplies and a cache of ancient arms they found in a chest at the back of Tumnus' storeroom, and rehearsed Susan on the strengths and weaknesses of Narnian cavalry. "I hate waiting!" he finally burst out, and leaped up to go to the door again. "What's taking him so long?"
Susan looked up from the map she was studying. They had been trying to determine just where the rebels were gathered; it had to be a large enough open space for the Harpies to get into the air and the Ogres to keep from fighting one another, with access to water. And not too many Dryads nearby.
"They won't hurt him," she said calmly, although Peter saw the line between her eyebrows that marked some concern. "He's too valuable."
"So they could keep him as a hostage!" Edmund, captive again in that castle: it was just one of Peter's nightmares.
"Not if they honestly see the rebels as a threat," Susan pointed out, and sat back from the map, giving him her full attention. "Some of them must have been at Beruna, must realize how useful we--and Aslan's backing--can be."
"But that's a threat to them, too!" Why had Peter agreed to this plan?
She sighed, looking at him with affectionate frustration. She tapped on the table with the dagger she had been using as a map pointer. "But we're also a tool. Let them think they're using us--it's what we want them to do! And Peter--trust us to do our jobs."
He laughed, suddenly, staring at his cautious, well-behaved sister, sitting in a cave with a naked blade in her hand.
"What?" she asked.
He folded his arms and stared back at her. She wore tall boots with breeches and a rough woolen jerkin over a worn tunic: she looked like a pirate queen from the days of old, not a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. "You wouldn't have said that two months ago."
She raised an eyebrow, glanced down at the knife in her hand, and flipped it suddenly, so it spun in the air and then landed with a solid thump back in her hand. Lucy wasn't the only one who got knife lessons from Reedpuller. "No, I guess I wouldn't have."
Peter grinned, and then looked outside again. No sign of them. He was just no good at standing around.
"You should go now," Susan said, from behind him, and put a hand on his arm. "Someone needs to confirm that--" she waved back at the table, where the maps lay weighted down by Tumnus' family silver. "And I can send Rhea after you when she comes back. You'll go mad, waiting here."
He caught his breath; the prospect of striking out across the Narnian countryside, fording streams and climbing hills, completely alone for the very first time since they had stumbled through the wardrobe--it was impossibly tempting. And they did need the intelligence. Susan didn't say anything more, just watched his face, as he balanced his desperate need to move with an instinctive caution. He was the High King: he wasn't supposed to put himself in danger--except he was the High King: if he didn't put himself at risk, how could he ask anyone else to?
And with that, the decision was made. "All right," he said, and went to the side of the parlor, where they had piled all their equipment. He quickly picked out his pack, added a waterskin, the last of the dried mutton from the Centaurs, and some writing materials stolen from Edmund. His cloak was too bright; he traded the worn scarlet for Susan's weathered green, and slid one of Tumnus' ancient daggers into his boot.
He hugged Susan at the doorway, feeling ridiculously like a character in a film. The dagger at her waist dug into his ribs, and she laughed, before drawing his head down and kissing him on the forehead. She looked like she was going to say something serious, and then dimpled, and just said, "Don't get lost, Pete."
He snorted, clapping her on the shoulder like he would have Edmund. "Make sure you send Rhea on as soon as they return--I want to know exactly what they said." And he turned and jogged away into the wood, feeling more than anything else like it was his first day at a new school, or the first time he rode the train alone. His veins felt like they were buzzing with soda water; the wind fluttered the edge of his cloak; and a crow cried out, far overhead, as he struck out northwest, following the winding route of Lantern Creek.
*
So a quick scouting expedition turned into a twenty-or-so mile slog, when after successfully locating the rebels' camp and getting a rough head-count of their forces (too close, and too many, in that order), Peter picked up a follower on the way back to Tumnus' cave. Rhea hadn't found him: he forced himself to assume it was for legitimate, non-worrisome reasons. But it made things more difficult, since without her nose and ears he was having a hard time determining what, exactly, it was that was following him.
He had a suspicion the days were getting shorter, although without a watch he couldn't be sure. (He couldn't remember where his watch was: he thought maybe he'd left it in Cair Paravel, and had a mental image of it sitting on the chest in the girls' room where they'd left most of their English clothes.) It was colder than it had been this morning, and the scuddering clouds had become a solid ceiling of light and dark grey. It was almost definitely going to rain: Susan would be unhappy about fighting a battle in the mud.
This would be the third time he had tried to catch whatever it was that was following him. The first two times it had slipped away--around or past him, he wasn't sure--and he couldn't risk going any further with it on his trail. He suspected he could probably lose it if he cut west, into the steep and unforgiving canyons leading up into the mountains, but he was also sure that if he did, he would lose himself as well. So he had to handle it now, before he led it--whatever it was--right back to his siblings.
This time he decided he'd go for a classic--if it had worked for Robin Hood, it should work for King Peter, right?--and had found himself a great Oak with broad, spreading limbs. After laying an obvious track down to the creek's edge, he'd backtracked cautiously and scaled the tree, ending up crouched against the trunk on a branch that had seemed much wider when viewed from the safety of the ground.
It occurred to him, as he waited in the growing gloom (and growing discomfort), that this would be a damned foolish move if it was a cat that was tracking him. He shifted his weight, realized how hard it would be to draw Rhindon in a hurry like this, and carefully swiveled around until he could draw the sword. Then, of course, he was faced with the problem of how to stay in the tree with a large and heavy bastard blade in one hand. And how was he to get down quickly without falling on the sword? In the end, he sat astride the branch with the sword balanced crosswise in front of him, and hoped his enemy had Rhea's eyesight (but not her nose).
Peter had been walking, or running, or crawling, nearly all day, with hardly a stop to rest. So it was no surprise when he found himself dozing on the tree, and only woke with a jerk as he began to tip over sideways. Swinging an arm wildly, he righted himself, but just enough to see Rhindon slide sideways, pommel first. He made a grab for it, but not fast enough, and he was awake enough not to seize the blade with his bare hands. The sword fell, and Peter's eyes followed it, and it hit the ground--right in front of a shaggy grey creature, which leaped backwards in surprise.
Were-wolf! thought Peter, and then he realized he had overbalanced in his grab for the sword, and he was falling from the tree as well.
The next few moments were a jumble: he landed on his shoulder, on something that gave under him, and then the rest of his body hit the ground hard. "Ooph!"
Were-wolf, Peter reminded himself, and pushed himself up, looking for Rhindon. There was the blade, just a few feet away--and there was the Were-wolf's face, even closer. Peter scrabbled backwards, still on his hands and knees, and the Were-wolf lunged at him, snapping. He had no armor: the Were-wolf's teeth caught at his left shoulder and ripped through cloth and skin as though they were wet paper. The pain was shocking, but Peter couldn't stop moving or he would be dead. He flung himself sideways, rolling, and managed to get his feet under him.
There was nothing he could do about his shoulder right now, and Rhindon was out of reach, twelve feet away. A distance he could cover in two strides, were it not for the creature in his way.
"So this is what a Human tastes like," hissed the Were-wolf, in a voice that sounded like meat frying. "Thin and weak-blooded, like your Lion," it scoffed, and rising up on its hind legs, it leaped forward at him.
But now Peter had a blade in his hand, and he met it, stepping forward, dodging the swinging arms with their dirty claws, and ducking low to drive the dagger upwards. The Were-wolf was smarter than he had expected, though, and it slipped sideways, so the blade merely scored along its ribs. It was a messy wound, but not a dangerous one.
This had to end soon, Peter thought. Blood was flowing freely down his left arm, dripping on the dirt so he tracked bloody footprints across the ground as he stepped sideways. The Were-wolf wouldn't let him get any closer to Rhindon, though, and instead charged forward again with a savage snarl.
Peter couldn't afford to close with it: he wasn't nearly strong enough to wrestle this thing. But he remembered what his father had done once, when they were out tramping and a dog had charged them from behind a hedge. And Peter had played a lot of football. His kick took the Were-wolf hard in the abdomen, so hard he heard ribs crack, and the creature fell backwards with a howl. That was all it took: Peter staggered to Rhindon, swept up the blade and swung about, just in time to spit the Were-wolf on the tip of the sword. It died cursing him, or Aslan, he wasn't sure.
Leaving him alone and bloodied in the forest, with a shoulder that felt like it had been turned into mince, and a long walk home in the dark.
Perhaps he should have waited for Rhea to come back, after all.
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments; comment here or there.