A Narnia Tale: For King, Queen and Country

The Battle For Cair Paravel

He wins his battles by making no mistakes. Making no mistakes is what establishes the certainty of victory, for it means conquering an enemy that is already defeated.

Erik experienced everything with an abnormal amount of attention on detail. He knew it was an effect of the adrenaline. The enemy charged at him. They clashed with his battle line with him in the first row. The next minutes were hectic in every sense of the word. A battle was vastly different from a dual. Here, you didn't see fancy techniques, it was more smashing as hard as you could. He blocked spear thrusts, dane axes and sword attacks. In turn he swung his sword into every gap he found. The sound of battle was everywhere. People screamed, steel clashed and the muffled groans filled Erik's ears. He found out that a battle like this was vastly different than it was back home. Here, you saw the enemy in the eye. Erik looked at his opponent, the minotaur groaned and looked at him with eyes of pure hate. The battle axe came at his head. Erik lifted his shield and felt the impact pushing him back. One of his soldiers behind him leaned against him and made sure that Erik didn't fall. When he found his balance, Erik thrusted his sword forward. The minotaur fell down with a large wound in his chest. He felt completely engulfed in the battle. After a while, you didn't really pay attention to anything else than what happened right in front of you. Erik lifted his sword again for a powerful cut at another opponent when someone behind him yelled: 'General! They need you in the centre.' Suddenly, he was out of his rhythm and could barely dodge a warhammer coming for his head. A soldier behind him replaced Erik on the front lines. It felt like the battle had taken hours already while it were mere minutes. 'What?' he yelled at the Archenlandish soldier. 'King Lune has asked for you, Sir,' the man said while pointing with his halberd to the centre of the line. Erik nodded and started running. Lune and Syrus were already waiting for him. 'What's the problem?' he asked when he arrived. Syrus pointed to the treeline: 'That is our problem.' A second force had appeared, Erik thought it was about the same size as the army they were already fighting. 'Fuck,' he said, that one word embodied everything they all thought. He kept gazing at the treeline, unable to focus on anything else. The army would simply walk over them, the sheer weight would crush their force in mere minutes. 'Hey! Erik?' the wild voice of Syrus brought him back to reality. 'Yeah?' he said. 'We need to come up with a solid plan, general,' said King Lune. 'Your majesty, with all due respect but I don't see a way we can defeat them. We are outnumbered four to one,' Erik looked at him with a dead gaze, he had almost accepted his fait. He lifted his shoulders and shook his head: 'I suggest we just try to take as many of them with us as possible.' Erik looked at the ocean behind them: 'Fucking hell, I had hoped to die farther away from the beach than this.' The palace glimmered behind him like a blood diamond. He got slapped in his face like it came from out of nowhere. 'Sir, get your shit together,' the face of the Satyr looked angry although Erik couldn't really read emotions of a goat's face yet. 'Majesty, let us launch a counter-attack. No fancy manoeuvres, no tricks we just go forward and try to break their ranks,' Kyrus said with steady voice, Lune nodded in agreement. 

An arrow landed a couple meters in front of them. Erik stood behind the ranks of his unit, ready to deliver the final order. He looked to his right, King Lune unsheated his gilded sword and lifted it in the air. 'For Aslan! For Archenland!' he screamed while the Archenlandish soldiers lifted their spears and repeated the battlecry. Erik did the same on his flank 'For Narnia!' his soldiers screamed. They rushed forward like they were carried on a stream. Minotaurs and bad dwarfs fell under Narnian swords, Minoboars screamed when spears buried themselves into their bodies. 'Come on! Move forward!' Erik yelled while he tried to catch up with his men. They didn't need his encouragements, the small force seemed invincible by the way it fought. Pride filled his hart while he finished off a wounded goblin. The enemy didn't know what happened, Narnian soldiers pushed and pushed into their ranks. What had seemed to be an unbeatable, impenetrable wall of monsters stared to flinch under the counter attack. Some parts wavered, then gaps appeared until it finally broke apart. In an instant, the enemy routed. The Narnians pursued their opponent, leaving the corpses of the fallen behind them. The second wave of enemies stopped dead in their tracks. Erik knew he had been wrong, victory was in reach, they just had to push their momentum. 'Keep going! Push them back!' he yelled when finally reaching the front rows. Leading by example, that was his motto, so he charged head first into the hesitating lines of fresh prey. He hacked and slashed his way trough them. They fell like leaf's in autumn, sadly his own side suffered dead and wounded as well. Suddenly he was tackled in his side. A minotaur positioned himself on top of him, hammer held for a killing blow. A spear came out of nowhere, piercing the brute's throat. 'Get up, general,' Erik recognized the voice of King Lune. He pushed the corpse of the now dead minotaur off his body and tried to get up. A red dwarf cam up to him and helped him up. then the support the dwarf had given him fell away and Erik stumbled, vaguely seeing a black arrow in the chest of the dwarf. He grabbed the nearest weapon he could find, a one handed mace, and moved forward while smashing a goblin's head in. Then his head exploded and everything went black.

His next memory was weird, a black dwarf lifted a bloody rock while sitting on top of him. Erik tried to lift his hands up but his body didn't respond. A Warhammer came out of nowhere, blood, bone and brains flew in every direction. Then he fell unconscious again. 'Come on, hand me some water!' someone yelled. Erik couldn't see anything, his head exploded in pain. 'I need bandages now! Bring a needle!' the same irritating voice yelled. 'Goddamn, don't they see I need some quietness and rest?' he thought. Hands went over his body. Where were his clothes? Four objects pierced his skin almost simultaneously in his left shoulder. His entire body exploded in pain. Erik almost jumped up: 'What the hell?!' he yelled. 'He's up! The general is awake!' the same voice as before yelled. 'Stay calm, man, stay calm,' a wild but familiar voice said. He slowly regained full consciousness again. 'Syrus, did we win?' Erik asked while raising his right hand. 'Yes, we won. It was close in the end but we won,' the satyr took his hand. And someone lifted the bandages that had covered his eyes. The fur of his brother in arms was bloodied. 'How many?' Erik asked. 'What?' was the return question. 'How many did we lose?' he clarified. 'A hundred and seventeen dead, fifty seriously wounded and a hundred lightly wounded,' Syrus told him, he felt that the Satyr was sad about the loss. 'That leaves about two hundred men that are ready for battle,' Erik calculated. 'Doesn't matter anymore, my friend. A centaur arrived a couple hours ago, we have won. The witch is defeated.' Erik didn't know how to react on that. He felt a tear rolling down his cheeks. 'Does that mean we aren't at war anymore?' he asked with a broken voice. 'Indeed, we won. Aslan's army will arrive here in the next few days. Narnia is free once more,' Kyrus said. Erik didn't say anything anymore, the war was over. He had done his job. In his mind, he was already making plans for a peaceful future.

Little did he know that the next few years of his life would be anything but peaceful.

Again a short one, i didn't feel like dragging one and believe it or not, i rewrote this part like three times. Anyway, the next part of the story will be written in first person perspective (i think) so it's going to be slightly diffrent. Pleace leave a comment if you liked it, if you didn't then also leave a comment and say why you didn't like it. It helps me improve. Sheers and I'll see you in the next one!