The Voyage - Edmund Pevensie

11

Edmund's POV:

It felt like I had just fallen asleep when I was being shaken awake, literally, by Caspian. 

"Ed, wake up!" he whispered. His panicked tone washed over me and I was suddenly completely awake. I looked at where he was staring in the sand and my stomach dropped slightly at the sight of huge footprints. And not just big human sized footprints, these were massive. As in, definitely not human-sized footprints. My head swung to where Cat had been sleeping, and my stomach dropped even further when I realized she wasn't there. 

"Where's Cat?" I asked, looking to Lucy's spot so she could tell me she'd just gone into the treeline to use the bathroom or something. But Lucy wasn't there either. "Where's Lucy?" I asked, trying to fight the growing panic that was beginning to claw at my stomach. 

"Cat? Lucy!" I called out their names but the only response I got was from the groaining of the men who were beginning to wake up. 

"Everybody up!" Drinian commanded to the group. "Get up. Get up I said!" After a quick sweep of the site didn't reveal my sister or Caspian's, I felt my heart began to pound in my chest. It was clear that whatever had made these footprints had taken the girls for whatever reason, and it terrified me to think what that reason was.

"This way!" Cas called, pointing to where the footprints lead into the trees. Instantly I was with him and running into the forest. My mind started to run with all the possibilities of what had happened to the girls. Magical creatures had gotten hungry in the night and only wanted women. Slave traders from the Lone Isles had followed us and taken them to get back at Caspian and had paid the giant-footed creatures to do it. From everything we had seen in our time in Narnia, I wasn't ruling anything out. 

How was I going to explain this to my family if something happened to Lucy? Of course, I didn't want anything to happen to my little sister, but explaining it to my parents who knew nothing about Narnia and this world made me feel ill. Not to mention trying to explain it to my siblings that something had happened in Narnia after we'd all survived 2 wars. 

And I didn't even want to think about Cat. Thinking about something happening to her made my heart ache in a way I'd never felt, and never wanted to feel again. It was like I couldn't breathe fully without her, and I wouldn't be able to breathe right again until I saw that she was safe. We had just found each other again after so long apart. I was not about to lose her. 

We followed the trail of footprints until the trees gave way to a garden of some kind. The men spread out to look around the different shrubs, small trees, and manicured lawns, but a glint of silver caught my eye. 

"Caspian, Cat's dagger." I looked at the spot on the ground where the dagger sat. There was no way Cat had left this here unless she'd dropped it and hadn't been able to go back for it. But as soon as I went to reach for it, a wooden spear fell inches from my face causing me to bounce back. Suddenly, spears were flying everywhere and the men began shouting, trying to figure out where they were coming from. 

"Stop right there or perish!" a gruff voice sounded seemingly out of thin air. In front of me, Caspian's sword was ripped from his hands and his head flew back like he'd been punched in the face. More men were being pushed down or punched around me as I tried to swivel around to pinpoint where the attack was coming from. A fist came down hard across my face and another once came directly into my gut right after. The breath got knocked out of me as I fell, and I lost my sword to whatever was attacking us. It was waving right in front of me, although there was seemingly nothing holding it. 

"Honestly, this might go to the top of the weirdest things I've seen in Narnia, and that's saying something," I whispered more to myself than anyone else. 

"What sort of creatures are you?" Caspian asked. 

"Big ones!" came the immediate reply. "With the head of a tiger and the body of a..."

"Different tiger!" another voice answered. 

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

"Or what?" I asked, thinking more of Cat and Lucy than myself. 

"Or I'll claw you to death!" a voice said. And I believed the voices, until out of nowhere their invisibility began to disappear before our eyes. 

"Or I'll run my tuft right through you!" someone else said. Instead of two-bodied tigers, the voices were instead small men with giant feet. Or really, a giant foot. There were two of them to one "monster", one holding the other up to make them taller. 

"And I'll gnash you with my teeth!"

"And I'll bite you with my fangs!" The threats kept coming, and I couldn't help but smile since clearly, they had no idea we could see them now. 

"You mean squash us with your fat bellies?" I asked. Caspian shot me a grin and a few of the crew members chuckled. 

"Tickle us with your toes?" Casian added. At this, the creatures grumbled in confusion amongst themselves. The ones in front of Caspian lost their balance as the top creature wiggled its toes and fell in a heap right in front of my friend. In an instant, I was in front of the little man sword drawn and pointed directly at him. 

"Where is my sister..." 

"And mine!" Caspian interjected.

"...you little pipsqueak." 

"Now, calm down..." the creature began to say but my patience was wearing thin now that the humor of seeing their true form was gone. 

"Where are they!" I demanded. 

"You'd better tell them..." 

"Go on Chief, tell him," a different voice spoke up.

"They're in the mansion," the pipsqueak, who apparently was the chief of these tiny men, answered me. I furrowed my brow, confused. I quickly glanced at Cas, but he looked as confused as me. There was no mansion, or even a house for that matter in the garden we were in. In fact, these creatures had been the only other signs of life we'd seen on the island. 

"What mansion?" I asked. 

As if it had been waiting for its dramatic entrance, an enormous mansion appeared out of thin air, much like how the creatures had suddenly appeared. Apparently whatever spell or enchantment that had kept the creatures invisible had also concealed the mansion. 

"Oh, that mansion," I said, suddenly feeling a little better now that I knew Lucy and Cat weren't far. 

"You know, I'm getting really tired of you leaving me all behind..." Eustace's voice sounded from behind the group causing us all, men and creatures included, to turn and look at my cousin. 

"Its the pig!"

"The pig's come back!" some of the creatures were saying. I suddenly felt less animosity towards the creatures as apparently, we shared the same feelings about my cousin. 

Eustace was a good distance across the clearing from me so I didn't hear exactly what he muttered next, but apparently the creatures did as they began mumbling amongst themselves about being called weird. Funny, I could have said the same thing about Eustace. 

"The Oppressor!" a pipsqueak said, suddenly panicked. Immediately the creatures began to back away from us and scatter across the grounds. I turned and let out a sigh of relief to see a man walking towards us with two girls in tow. 

"Cat! Lucy!"