soldier, poet, king || e. pevensie | slow updates

the king • 7

there will come a ruler, whose brow is laid in thorn, smeared with oil like david's boy, oh lei-oh lai-oh lord.

It was past ten when Edmund had finally threw in the towel and put his sword away for the night. After all, he had to be up early to train the idiot soldiers.

Someone knocked on his door.

"Go away, it's late." He never tried to be polite. Servants knew not to take it personally, and there was no one important around to take offense.

"It's me," His brother, High King Peter, said. "I'm coming in." He opened the door and stepped into Edmund's room.

"I'm too tired for anything. What's wrong?"

"I had an idea about your army." Peter sat on Edmund's bed. "You know that Ettin girl?"

"I'm dismissing her tomorrow night. She's good, but we don't need a spy at this time. We're already almost at war."

"Make her your personal bodyguard."

"Let me get this straight. You want me, a King of Narnia, to invite a spy to take up the closest and most intimate role in the military? You realize that she would spend all of her time with me and find out everything about Narnia. She'd be standing outside every door, listening in on meetings." Edmund huffed, moving around the room to blow out the candles.

"Just think," Peter said. "You'd be able to keep an eye on her. You'd be together so often that she wouldn't have a chance to get information to Ettinsmoor. Besides, we don't even know if she's an Ettin. She could be from Calormen."

"As if that's better." Edmund snorted. "I don't want to hear anything else about this. Goodnight. And don't tell Lucy to try and convince me."

Peter stood and went to the door. "Consider it." He left.

Edmund didn't want to consider it. It was an outrageous idea and he would never let it happen. She was leaving the next night, if he had anything to say about it. And he did, considering that he ran the whole military. No one would beat the next day's challenge. Not even the best of the best.

He only got five hours of sleep, at most. At dawn, he dragged himself out of bed and got dressed. The second and final day of the tests. The final challenge was going to last all day, and it was a difficult one.

Edmund went down to the armory and got ready, then met the still-eager, but tired recruits.

"Alright!" He called out, walking down the line. "Today's challenge will last well into the night, so I hope you ate a big breakfast. You will go into the woods and find the biggest tree there. In the very top of it you will find something. I would like it returned to the castle as soon as you find it. There will be members of the guard stationed throughout the woods who you will have to duel. And I warn you, they will not hold back. You have a quarter of an hour to prepare yourselves. Starting now."

Everyone started rushing around to get into armor and double check their weapons. He smiled slightly, before disappearing into the woods. He found and scaled the tree easily, placed his crown at the top of it, and sat waiting in the next tree over. He saw no one for hours and hours. Clearly his knights were keeping them busy. His plan was going off without a hitch so far.

A minotaur came bursting through the wood and grabbed the tree to shake the crown out of it. Edmund easily dropped out of the tree in front of him.

"Far too loud, my friend." Edmund smirked and lunged for him. The minotaur was armed with a battle-axe, and was slow with it. He was quite aggressive to make up for it, though. But he wore no armor on his back, so Edmund jumped against the tree to launch himself onto the minotaur's back. He took the butt of his sword and slammed it onto the minotaur's head. It wouldn't kill him, but it would take points off for sure.

Edmund dragged him a bit away from the tree and left him there to wake up. He went back to his tree and climbed it again to wait for another opponent.

He heard a small crash and a quiet string of curses. He looked over to see that a faun woman had jumped from another tree onto the tall one. Smart. But again, too loud. He didn't see how she could climb with her hooves, but she didn't even try to climb. He walked over.

"Need a hand?" He found his little comments very clever, but other people didn't often agree. The faun woman didn't either. No wonder she didn't move, she was only armed with a bow. An odd choice for a no-maiming-or-killing challenge.

She dropped from the tree and took an arrow out of her quiver. She proved to be very quick with it, slicing at him and trying to catch him with the point of it. She would be good with a knife. Edmund actually had to try in this fight, which made it enjoyable.

He didn't eventually get her pressed against the tree with his sword to her throat. She surrendered, but laughed.

"What's so funny?" Edmund cocked his head to the side.

"This is." A voice came from behind him. It was the Ettin. She had his crown on her head!

He glared and drew his sword. "You won't be getting that back to the castle. I'm not letting a spy into my army."

"Hm," She mused. "I've been looking forward to this, Your Majesty." She added the last bit with sarcasm. Edmund was a fan of sarcasm, but only when he did it. "I was going to run with the crown and win without you even noticing me, but I wanted to see the look on your face."

"Big mistake," He lunged with his sword, but she was prepared. She had done well in the first day of training, so there was no surprise that she was warmed up and ready to go. She had a scratch on her face and it was bleeding. She'd gotten past the guards. Damn, she was too good. He needed to get ahold of the swordsmen in Ettinsmoor to train his military.

She was still wearing his crown, even when he almost pushed her to the ground. It made him unbelievably angry. Sure, it was his idea to make the crown the object, but she shouldn't be wearing it. While fighting him, nonetheless! It never fell off. Of course, he'd designed it that way so he could wear it in battle and have it stay on. Here she was, some nobody, wearing his crown and getting close to beating him in a duel. Whether he liked it or not, she was winning.

He let his guard down for just one second to scan the woods. Who knew how many people were coming to gang up on him. That would be embarrassing. In just that one second, she kicked his legs out from under him and bolted. By the time he stood again, she had disappeared. With any luck, some centaur would intercept and get the crown from her.

He climbed back up his tree and leaned against the trunk. None of his siblings could know about this. He'd never live it down. Of course, things always had their way of coming out.

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cory is so slay moment i love her