AU-- part two
Six years after the fact, Princess Susan disappeared.
Peter, of course, was without restraint once that quiet voice was stolen. His bellowing could be heard up and down the frigid halls, orders laid on thick to find her or to find the bloody cur who did it! It took only one week to find that it had been the Calormenes, more specifically Prince Rabadash of Calormen, that had spirited Susan away. Forces were gathered. Weapons were forged. Peter demanded a battle to determine ownership and Rabadash swayed opinion at least nine times before he finally agreed to the time and place: Beruna. At dawn.
Peter swore, but Lucy barely glanced his way.
"The coward has been at march for three days before he sent the challenge!" It would leave the Narnians scrambling- almost without hope for victory. It would mean Rabadash already expected to win, and had no intention of bringing Susan with him.
"What did you expect, my prince?" Lucy wondered, smoothing the whetting stone across the silvery blade in her palm. "Rabadash cheats. He steals and tricks."
Peter sneered, "Much like his company."
Very much like his company. Not only did Rabadash attack the night before dawn, when Peter was still collecting and organizing the recruits, but the overwhelming wave of Fell that followed from the West threatened to demolish Peter's forces in the first blow.
"To arms, Narnians!" The Prince of Narnia roared, swinging Vidar high above his head to bring it down again into the neck of a charging Minotaur, "Kill or be killed by this race of child-slayers!" He took the throat of a Boggle, kicking Philip hard into the thick of things.
Blood sprayed thick onto Lucy's face, the steam still rising as she drew her daggers in parallel lines across the face of the Wulf behind her, twisting back to stab the gut of some nameless monster as dull as his battleaxe. Before long, the snow around them had fallen red, and the bodies of Fell and Calormen alike had faded into the battleground.
Peter, locked in combat with a well-decorated Fell, did not see Rabadash attempt to crawl into the protection of the rocks of Beruna. Lucy's dagger however, found him easily, and pinned one hand to the solid ice as she closed the distance between them.
"Do not kill me!" the Calormene prince begged, armor tacky and hand twitching uncontrollably as the nerves were tortured, "I beg of you, gracious lady-"
"I am not a lady," Lucy said, staring down at him, "I am Princess Lucy. The heir to the throne of Queen Lucy, called Valiant. I am sister to heir of the throne of the Queen called Gentle- the same that you, Oh Prince of Fools, have stolen."
"Noble Princess," Rabadash sobbed, holding his hand like a suckling babe against his bosom, "Sweet Queen, spare me. I beg you! Spare me."
"Tell me what has become of Princess Susan," said Lucy, "and I shall spare you."
"She is unharmed, untouched, and well cared for. Now spare me, gentle princess. Spare-"
He choked on blood, his airway slit open for the bracing air of the rocky tundra.
"I am not gentle, but you see I have spared you," Lucy told the dead man. "My brother would not have been so merciful." To the Narnians scattered in fights with the enemy within and beside and above the rocks, she called, "Dead! The heir to Calormen is dead! Slaughtered by Prince Peter the Blood-Bayer!"
"Long live the Bayer of Fallen Blood!" Narnia roared, a vivacity formerly diminished reborn and reestablishing each loyal subject within the battle. Soon, only those loyal to Peter and Lucy were left alive.
Save the well-decorated Fell that Peter had bound and gagged at his feet.
"A Fell General," Peter explained at Lucy's questioning look, "A captive for the morale of our people."
"They need more than a hanging, at this point."
"It will be enough to tide them over.
They traveled back to the fortress with weary content, and when Lucy went to sleep that night, she dreamed for the first time since she was eight.