serendipity - narnia [EDITING]

chapter 20

Chapter 20
The Desperate Plans of Mice and Men Often Go Awry

Every piece of Narnian legend said that High King Peter the Magnificent lived up to his title. And though Dahlia believed that to be true, at times she found herself irritated by the fact that he was always in charge. This was one of those times.

Dahlia, Susan, and Caspian skidded to a halt as Peter raced down the wrong hallway, presumably going for the courtyard. Susan and Dahlia both yelled for him to stop, but of course he wouldn't listen. He rarely did.

"Our troops are just outside! Come on!" Peter yelled, running around the corner. The girls exchanged exasperated looks before sprinting after him, Caspian at their heels.

They ran at top speed towards the gate once they finally got outside, their boots pounding against the stone of the courtyard. Dahlia could hear the Telemarine soldiers yelling and preparing for battle within the castle walls.

"Now, Ed, now! Signal the troops!" Peter cried, drawing his sword to fight a few men running at them. Dahlia faltered as she saw Edmund fighting a guard atop the tower. Cursing under her breath, she snapped her fingers. The Telemarine's sword flew out of his grasp and stabbed him in the back. Dahlia didn't even have time to register Edmund's yell of thanks as she ran to the gate.

"Peter, it's too late! We have to call it off while we can," Susan begged as Peter started to turn the wheel. Dahlia watched Edmund use his torch to send the signal, panic rising within her with every passing second. It was going to be a massacre, and Peter refused to stop.

"No, I can still do this! Help me!" Peter protested, continuing to slowly turn the wheel. Caspian and Susan both looked at Dahlia, desperately hoping she could knock some sense into him (either with words or with a weapon, at that point they didn't care). She huffed in frustration, looking at the Telemarine soldiers beginning to emerge from the castle.

"I hate this," she muttered under her breath, looking back at the pair of them. "We don't have a choice anymore, help him." The queen and the prince both looked like they were going to object, but Dahlia knew they had no time. "Help him!" she yelled, conjuring two fireballs and turning to face the oncoming soldiers. That time they listened.

Dahlia heard the yells of their approaching Narnian army; her three friends were taking too long. She sent a wave of fire at the oncoming soldiers, spinning around and shoving Peter and Caspian out of her way. With inhumane, magic-fueled strength she spun the wheel in one go and the gate rose open, letting their army into the courtyard.

"For Narnia!" Dahlia barely heard Peter's battle cry over the ringing in her ears; she had never been so certain that a plan was going to fail. But as she'd told Caspian and Susan, they had no choice. And so into battle she went.

In her fifteen years of ruling Narnia, Dahlia had become quite proficient in fighting both with magic and without. She killed the first Telemarine that ran at her with a fireball, then kicked a second in the shin and snapped his neck with magic. The next few kills were a horrendous blur because the only thing Dahlia could focus on was that Narnians were dying around her and she couldn't stop to help them. That remained the worst part of any battle for her; the gut instinct to run and heal even though it put her own life at risk.

"Lia, duck!" Dahlia instantly dropped to the ground at Susan's voice, watching an arrow pierce the neck of a soldier who was about to attack her from behind. The mage nodded her thanks and the girls resumed fighting; Dahlia returned Susan's favor by setting ablaze an archer who'd aimed a crossbow at the queen's head.

The archer next to the flaming one suddenly tumbled out of his perch. Susan guarded Dahlia's back as the mage looked up to find what had happened and saw Edmund in the archer's place. She quickly turned away so she didn't draw attention to him, freezing up when Peter did the exact opposite.

"Ed!" Peter yelled. Dahlia watched in horror as the row of archers closest to Edmund took aim. The just king ran into a small, conveniently placed tower and kicked the door shut. At the same time, Dahlia clapped her hands together and the necks of every archer in that row snapped. She drew her sword from the sheath on her back and ran to stab the soldier Peter was fighting, glaring at the High King.

"Are you trying to get more of us shot?" she yelled, spinning around and clashing her blade against a soldier's before Peter had a chance to reply. After a moment she saw him start fighting his way up a set of stairs; she cursed as her eyes followed his path. Miraz stood on his balcony in his dressing gown, just watching as the blood covered the ground.

Dahlia looked away and leaned out of the path of a slashing blade, stabbing its Telemarine owner in the leg and running to help a faun fighting two men at once. She spun around when she heard a pained cry above her; one of their minotaurs had managed to grab hold of the balcony and was shot with an arrow. Miraz slowly walked over and shoved the minotaur; Dahlia raised her free hand in the air, catching the minotaur mid-fall and lowering him to the ground. A Telemarine dropped next to her and she turned to see Susan, her bow still aimed at the man to ensure he didn't get back up.

A grinding sound reached them from across the courtyard and they turned to see the gate starting to close. Dahlia panicked, sprinting for it and nearly slipping on a stone slick with blood. As she regained her balance, a minotaur reached the gate and placed himself under it. Groaning with effort he kept the gate open, but Dahlia knew it wouldn't hold forever; they needed to get out of there. Thankfully, Peter finally remembered how to use his brain.

"Fall back!" Dahlia heard him cry out over the clashing of swords. Her eyes scanned the courtyard for him and she spotted him running down the stairs as he yelled. Susan was also accounted for and Edmund was likely still in his tower, but she couldn't spot Caspian amongst the soldiers. Dahlia sheathed her sword and sprinted over to Peter, forming an energy shield around herself to focus on getting to the High King. "We need to retreat now!"

Peter met Dahlia at the bottom of the steps and she adjusted the shield to cover both of them as they started running back through the crowd together. Peter called for Glenstorm to grab Susan and get out. Dahlia was relieved when the centaur rushed through the gate with Susan on his back; at least one of the siblings was safe. She dropped the energy shield and grabbed Peter's arm.

"I'll get one of the griffins to grab Ed but you need to find Caspian," Dahlia said to Peter as they dodged two dueling soldiers. The High King nodded and ran off, leaving the mage to find a griffin. Dahlia flew into the sky and let out a sharp whistle, waiting as one of the griffins flew over to her. She ordered it to get Edmund out of there and returned her attention to the courtyard below. She saw Caspian ride out of the castle on a horse with the reins of another in his hands. An older man sat on a horse behind him and Dahlia assumed he was the prince's professor. She watched as they rode towards the gate, Peter running after his horse and swinging himself onto it mid-run.

Then she felt an excruciating pain in her shoulder and cried out. She looked down to see an arrow protruding from her shoulder; Miraz had shot her.

On the ground, both Peter and Caspian stopped their horses when they heard her scream. Dahlia faintly heard one of them call her name, but she could only focus on trying to keep herself in the air. The pain and the steady loss of blood (even though the arrow was still lodged in her shoulder) became too much and the mage started to drop out of the sky.

She was only half aware of what was going on, but she felt someone grab her and settle her on what felt like a saddle. An arm wrapped around her waist and she felt that the horse she was on was riding at full gallop. They seemed to clear the gate, and Dahlia would've been relieved if her body allowed her to feel anything other than pain. She leaned back into the chest of whoever had saved her, eyes squeezed shut as she tried to block out the pain. Every instinct told her to pull the arrow out, but she knew it was the only thing keeping her from bleeding to death.

"Come on, Fey, stay with me. You'll be alright, we're getting out of here. Hold on." The voice was faint as Dahlia faded in and out of consciousness, but it was definitely Caspian.

"Thank you," Dahlia managed to whisper as Caspian urged his horse to go faster. His grip on her waist tightened and she passed out.