The Voyage - Edmund Pevensie

5

We ended up taking two long boats with Caspian, Lucy, Eustace, Reepicheep, Edmund, me, and a few other crew members in one and Drinian, Tavros, and the rest of the landing party in another. 

"Onward!" Reepicheep exclaimed as we reached land. "The thrill of the unknown lies ahead." As we all piled out of the boats, I heard Eustace ask,

"Couldn't this have waited till the morning?" 

"There is no honor in turning away from adventure lad!" Reep scolded. 

"Listen," Lucy interjected silencing the conversation. Everyone in our party stopped moving for several seconds. I strained to listen, but there was nothing. 

Then I realized, that was it. There was nothing. No hustle and bustle of people trying to get home before dark, no ships pulling in from a full day at sea, nothing. The city was silent. 

"Where is everybody?" Lucy asked. 

"That's a good question Lu," I said as Caspian and I climbed the steps from the dock at the front of the party. However with a ruckus behind us, Cas, Lucy, Ed and I spun to see Eustace struggling to get out of the boat. 

"Come on jelly legs," Reep encouraged. Seemingly in response, Eustace fell face first onto the stone steps. I could hear Reep's sigh all the way at the top of the stairs. 

"And you're sure he's related by blood?" Caspian asked. Lucy and Edmund didn't answer, just stared at the boy before we all turned to head further away from the boats. As we got closer to the large stone ramp that led up from the port to the actual buildings, a bell tolled in a tower not far into the city. Startled, I aimed Susan's bow up, but I couldn't see anyone other than a few birds who had taken to the skies just as startled by the bell as we had been. 

Dread coiled up like a snake in the pit of my stomach as I went to stand over with Edmund at the base of the ramp. There was something definitely wrong here. 

"Reepicheep," Caspian said to the mouse. "Stay here with Drinian's men and secure the place. We'll head on. If we don't come back by dawn, send a party." 

"Yes your majesty," Reep answered, turning to go back to Drinian at the boats. Caspian followed behind Edmund and I with Lucy and Eustace bringing up the rear. As we got into the city, it was even more quite if it were possible. While before even at dock there had been the gentle lapping of waves, behind the walls of the city there was no noise. We broke away occasionally to look inside of a window and I was shocked to see a family crouching together in a building I looked in, absolutely terrified. 

I pulled my bow string a little tighter as I rejoined the group with Caspian now in the lead. We made our way over to a large door set into another wall that seemed to lead to the biggest building at the center of the city, which happened to be the bell tower we'd heard chime earlier. Right as we made it to the door, Eustace's voice cut through the silence and caused me to nearly jump out of my skin. 

"Yea, looks like nobody's in so do you think we should head back?" I turned to see him outside one of the buildings, several yards away. I'd been so busy inspecting the wall and the door of the bell tower I hadn't even realized he'd fallen behind. 

"Why did we bring him with us again?" I asked myself. "Ah right, because the crew probably would've thrown him overboard." Of course, they wouldn't have actually thrown him overboard. At least, not if Caspian told them not to. But the only two people he knew on the whole ship were his cousins who were going with the landing party and it didn't seem fair to leave him on the ship by himself. 

"Do you want to come here and... guard... something?" Edmund asked. While I could tell Edmund had asked just to give Eustace something to do, I was a proud of him for involving his cousin. Especially considering when just this afternoon Edmund had seemed ready to throw Eustace into the ocean.