make it right ➞ edmund pevensie; the chronicles of narnia [editing]

SIXTEEN.

"These are fast times and fast nights, no time for rewrites"

-

SIXTEEN.

THEY RUN INTO BATTLE, weaving through the soldiers like a dance.

"I'm at twelve!" Cady yells her count at Edmund, slashing a Telmarine's legs from under him and performs a swift back-cut stroke, walloping off his head.

"Fourteen!" Cady hears him yell back with a grunt.

A sword grazes her arm and Cady spins the opposite direction, stabbing her falchions up and into the man's head.

Then, three Telmarines rush at her at the same time and she can only parry, eyes wide as she reacts without thinking. One of them knocks her sword from her left hand and she backs away, but the second one trips her from behind.

Cady is scrambling now, her right arm up and counter attacking their moves. She reaches down and finds the curve of an abandoned bow. So she grabs it and strikes it up, surprising the three soldiers. The Telmarines' armour is weak at the neck and beneath the arm. So she guides it along a soldier's shoulder, and pulls him forward so she can slice at him. He falls back with a stagger.

Crouching down, she finds the quiver to the bow and pulls out two arrows, shooting them separately at the remaining soldiers, the arrows piercing their chainmail and flying true. They fall down together, and Cady breathes a sigh of relief, pulling the quiver over her shoulder and aims at the nearest Telmarine to shoot.

"Princess Cady," someone calls her name. When she turns, she finds herself staring down a Lord of Telmar. His voice is venomous when he speaks, and his expression contorts into one of disgust.

"Lord Donnon," Cady replies with a hiss, baring her teeth. "Pleasure to see you."

He flashes her a wicked grin, showing yellowing teeth. And maybe it is her newly discovered mermaid heightened senses but he stinks of blood."And it will be my pleasure to end the Telmar royal bloodline," he tells her, weapon high.

Lord Donnon charges without mercy, he is stronger than her, that she knows, but his armour makes him slow and his age drags him down. The only thing that scares her is the mace he carries around, the thick ball of spiked steel drags on the ground behind him.

All she can do is evade. He brings it up and smashes it down, Cady dodges it just barely. Her sword does nothing, won't be able to do anything, against his weapon.

"You know, you're more like Miraz than you realise," Lord Donnon sneers, picking up his mace to swing again. Cady swerves away, the mace missing her by a hair. His attacks are alarming quick. "Second to the throne, more lowly than your older brother, but you do have something going for you. Little half-blood Narnian, aren't you?"

When he shifts his weight to lift the mace again, Cady takes the split-second opportunity to step on the wooden handle of the mace, snapping it in half before he can pick it up fully. Then, she slices her sword across his chest, it doesn't do much against his metal breastplate but it does make him stagger back in surprise.

"You're wrong," she replies impassively. Cady strikes forward, stabbing through the opening between his breastplate and pauldron. Lord Donnon falls to his knees when she pulls the blade back.

The Lord stares back at her, eyes gleaming as he says, "So you do have the bite to back up your bark."

"Don't," Cady warns.

"What? Is the princess too scared to kill?"

She freezes in her spot, then glares at him. Cady raises her sword, preparing to strike. "No–"

But the sword that drives through him isn't hers.

When Lord Donnon falls, she blinks up to see who had done it and she finds Edmund staring down the body, a stone cold gaze that she has never seen before flits across his face before he turns to look at her. In one hand, he holds his sword, and the other is her other falchion that she had been disarmed of.

"He's not worth your time, Cads," Edmund tells her, stepping closer. "You're not them," he reassures.

Cady nods, blinking tears away furiously. "Thank you," she replies. Then she follows him back into battle.

"Would you like your sword back, Cads," Edmund asks, still holding her sword.

Cady tilts her head, then smiles. "No, you look good with it," she tells him with a shrug. "I found this bow, and I might keep it."

They leap into the fight in unison, each taking one side as they fight back to back. Cady works so in sync with Edmund that she feels like she has been doing this with him since the beginning of her world.

Cady follows Edmund into the fight, and when he catches her hand to pull her back from an incoming attack, she spins around to block a strike to his defenceless back.

A Telmarine soldier, quite the smart one, kicks her in the stomach. And she staggers back, gasping for breath. Edmund whirls around and catches her before she can fall. Cady raises her sword to block the downwards slash and Edmund stabs forward. She disarms the soldier and kicks him off of Edmund's sword, the body dropping to the ground with a thud.

Then the earth rumbles and groans, and a tree root escapes the earth.

Cady lets out a laugh of surprise. "The trees! They're alive!" She says, turning to Edmund with a beam. Trees walk on the earth, their roots digging into the earth and emerging out to destroy the Telmarines' trebuchets.

"Lucy," Edmund replies, a proud smile dawning on his face. He takes her hand and leads her to regroup with Caspian, Peter, and Susan. The Narnians join them, flanking around them as they admire the trees.

The Narnians cheer in victory as the trees take down one catapult after the other. The Telmarines turn pale, eyes glazed in terror as they flee and shriek for help. The ocean-like roars of the awakening Trees drown out the cries and the clash of weapons as they plunge through the earth in pursuit of the Telmarines.

"For Aslan!" Peter shouts, joining the Trees' attack on the Telmarines, changing the tide of the battle.