Eternal || Edmund Pevensie (The Chronicles of Narnia) [2]

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

POSTED 2/3/21

The crew of the Dawn Treader stealthily made their way into the woods with Caspian, Mary, Edmund, and Drinian in the lead. Eventually, the group reached the end of the row of trees and emerged into what seemed to be a garden. There were shrubs, bushes, and all sorts of plants of different species positioned around a clean piece of land. They even all looked to have been regularly maintained as if someone lived there.

The rising sun beat down on them and the birds chirped above the clouds as they cautiously walked through the garden. But strangely enough, nothing seemed out of place. It was quiet as well — almost too quiet that it only raised their suspicions even further. Everyone held their breaths while scanning their surroundings, their weapons drawn before them in defense.

"It's Lucy's dagger," Edmund broke the silence. Mary and Caspian hurried towards Edmund who had crouched down to pick up the dagger.

"I hope she's nearby," Mary muttered worriedly. All of a sudden, she saw something flying their way at an alarming speed — a spear. A split second later, she shouted, "Watch out!"

Barely anybody had the chance to even react when loads of long, wooden spears came raining down on them. Mary pushed Edmund aside before he could get struck by one, and the two of them landed on the ground with a small thud. A spear plunged itself into the grass right where they had been standing just moments earlier. Edmund looked up at Mary with wide eyes, but he couldn't get a word out before she was removing her hands from his chest and urging him to stand up again. The two of them scrambled to their feet and dodged a few more spears that trapped them and their crew mates in place.

"Stop right there or perish!" a gruff voice said. Caspian was ready to use his sword, but it was taken away from him by some invisible force. Before they knew it, everyone was being punched and shoved by creatures they couldn't even see.

"Hey — ow!" said Mary, wincing after those things hit her square on the face. She felt stupid as she tried to evade their attacks and flailed her arms everywhere but to no avail. The others weren't doing any better, either, all of them grunting and groaning as they were beaten up. In the end, it seemed that the crew was losing this fight since they were now defenseless.

"What sort of creatures are you?" Caspian asked from where he had fallen to the ground.

"Big ones," one of them taunted. Caspian carefully got up, trying not to make any more sudden movements because those invisible creatures were now pointing their swords at them. "With the head of a tiger and the body of a..."

"Different tiger!" another finished.

"Yeah!" the others chorused.

"You don't want to mess with us."

"Or what?" said Edmund.

"Or I'll claw you to death!" said the one that seemed to be standing right in front of him. However, the once invisible creatures were slowly starting to take shape and color. Mary watched attentively as they took the form of short humans — wait, no, they weren't humans. They looked like dwarves, but instead of two legs and a pair of feet, they had only one, large leg and a giant foot that made up most of the lower half of their bodies. What made this scene all the more amusing was that they were carrying one another as if to seem bigger and scarier than they actually were.