With Courage [Prince Caspian]

Chapter 16

The deck had been cleared in their absence. Everything that could move, crates and chairs and the like, had been stowed below deck and only the bare necessities remained. Amber noted that their blanket, hastily stuffed into a corner, had also been taken. Her chest hollowed at the sight, longing to go back into that moment, blissfully unaware of Dark Island's presence looming over their near future. But she couldn't. She was here, now, with the Dawn Treader crew facing bona fide uncertainty in the shape of shadows and mist.

The crew stood in orderly lines across the deck and its raised counterparts at the front and back of the ship, stock still as they watched Caspian ascend to the forecastle and look out across the crowd. He locked eyes momentarily with Amber, then squared his shoulders and spoke out to the crowd.

"No matter what happens here, every soul that stands before me has earned their place on the crew of the Dawn Treader." His voice parts the silence smoothly, and with it, the skulking presence of evil that had been slithering over the ship undisturbed, like a light casting the shadows into nonexistence. "Together we have travelled far. Together we have faced adversity. Together we can do it again. So now is not the time to fall for these temptations. Be strong. Never give in. Our world, our Narnian lives depend on it." The crowd wait with bated breath as he pauses, raising his chin and looking out beyond the ship. "Think of the lost souls we're here to save. Think of Aslan." At his name, the men stand straighter. "Think of Narnia." He concludes, seemingly blinking back into reality with a renewed assuredness.

"FOR NARNIA!" The deck comes alive with a thundering wave of noise, cries torn from throats rich with pride and determination. Amber's heart stutters in her chest as she watches them pierce the air with their blades and the sight of Caspian's pure bewilderment at their response renews a painful ache deep in her chest. She had never known a better man, or one who lacked the confidence they rightly deserve. For the most part, she had only met men with too much arrogance and too little to justify it. She would tell him, when this was over, that he was fit for this. That his parents would be proud and Narnia is safe under his rule, but for now she watched him blink away surprised tears and join Drinian at the wheel.

Then, they entered Dark Island.

A hush fell over the ship, the kind of silence that descended suddenly and brought a physical weight along with it to settle in the throats of anyone who dared break its suffocating hold. Air was stolen from lungs and even the floorboards lost their familiar creak. The waves no longer whispered. Swords were held with white knuckles. The universe held its breath and waited.

Evil had long since ceased to be a stranger, though its presence was an ever-changing discomfort. It creeped down their throats and ran tapered claws across their ribs, scuttling beetles over their heart and spiders up their necks, running fingers through their hair as a mother would, but with the promise that it would soon pluck their head from their shoulders as if it were nothing more than an apple ready for picking.

Marco balled his hands into tight fists at his sides and shut his eyes to block out the taunting voice hissing in his ear, arms powerless to stop the shake of fear, his vambrace rattling against the hilt of his sword at his hip. Tavros laid a heavy paw on his shoulder, almost buckling his knees in the process, but after a few hushed words Amber could not hear, Marco's courage had been restored by a respectable degree.

"If only they would do the same for you." Said a woman. Amber spun and watched the mist cock its head to the side. The shape was shifting, constantly breaking apart into nothing and reforming, but the detail was enough for Amber.

The untamable wave of hair, the long slope of a nose, lips that quirked up to the side almost involuntarily.

The mist took upon another shape. A man. In him she saw the rest.