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Susan was waiting.
She did it often. Patience was a skill that had always come easily to her, and with two brothers and a spirited little sister, that was a blessing beyond words.
But in this instance, it was slightly more pivotal than usual.
Sweat slipped from her under arm and down her side, tickling as it dripped unseen within her bodice. She shifted just slightly, rubbing the sweat dry by pressing her arm to her side, trapping the liquid between fabric and skin. She wiped her upper lip, drying the ever-returning moisture with the back of her hand, and resisted a sigh.
A two hour wait would drain anyone’s patience.
Her legs ached in their cramped position, but she didn’t indulge by moving into a better one. She had only a few minutes before her chance would come, and she wouldn’t waste it by risking the attention of the guards that stood not fifteen feet away.
Anxiety came, for the thousandth time since she’d crouched in her hiding spot, and she briefly closed her eyes.
Aslan, give me strength.
One of the guards in front of her spoke suddenly in his native tongue, and Susan clapped a hand over her mouth before she could gasp in surprise. Horrified at her near slip, she left her hand there, and watched the guards with enough intensity to rival her cat guard Taimus.
The guard’s companion nodded and spoke in the same language. They conversed for a moment, then began walking away. There was a sound of clanking armor, a sign that the next shift was nearing.
Susan pulled her hand away, staring at the backs of the first shift. Her hands on the floor hardened into fists, and her heart picked up pace, almost pounding out of her chest. With a deep breath, she ducked her head and rolled out of her hiding spot, jumping immediately to her feet once she was clear.
Leaping silently across the floor, she kept one eye on the entrance in front of her and the other on the two retreating guards. Both of them were still chatting, paying absolutely no attention to the door they’d just been guarding, so she set her eyes forward and trusted her ears to let her know of anything amiss.
The door was unlocked, as she’d expected, and made no sound as she eased it open and edged through the crack. She pulled it shut quickly behind her, then stood, holding her breath. The faint sounds of clicking boots and metal wear continued without pause.
Susan heaved a huge sigh and rested against the door. Thank you, Aslan.
Ahead of her, a man rounded the closest corner, his figure dimly lit by torchlight and the lantern that he held. Her gasp of surprise was clearly audible, and she instantly crouched into the shadow by the door, every instinct screaming to make herself as small and invisible as possible.
“Who’s there?” he called, stepping forward.
Her hand shot to her shoulder, grasping the crossbow that was tucked inside her pack. In a second it was out and in her arms, and the man before her had less than that before there was a hiss of air and he fell to the ground with a bolt in his throat.
Susan stood for a moment, fear abating to be replaced by horror. She closed her eyes again, almost weeping, and silently cried for Aslan.
Courage. A breath of warm air ghosted across her face.
Straightening her shoulders, she pressed forward, giving the dead man a wide berth. The lantern, which he’d dropped but had miraculously not broken, she took in her left hand and held ahead of her as she advanced into the corridor.
A flight of stairs was around the first corner, and Susan started down it. She kept the crossbow in her right hand, and though she was shaking, she knew she would not hesitate to use it again.
Her survival and other’s depended on it, and she had Aslan’s blessing.
The space began to stink as she descended, smelling of human waste and vomit. Susan’s own stomach protested, but she shook her head and kept on, anxiety growing. The smell was not a good indication that her escape plan would work.
Upon reaching the bottom of the stair, she found herself in the first chamber of a dungeon.
The area was deserted. There were no prisoners in the cells lining the walls, and no guards stood by the stair or the entrance into the next chamber. But the smell was stronger, and one of the cells had fresh blood and sick on the floor.
She pressed her left hand to her mouth, the lantern still clutched in it bumping gently into her leather-armored chest. She knew, somehow, that the blood smearing the stone was Edmund’s.
Her breath came in gasps, and she felt sick. Against her hand, her lips trembled. Oh Aslan, why had they not brought Lucy’s cordial with them when they left Cair!
Another puff of warm air brushed across her face, and she lowered her hand. She grasped the lantern’s handle tighter, anger stopping her shaking. With confidence, she slipped forward and pressed herself against the wall by the next chamber’s entrance.
Susan checked quickly, and, seeing no one, darted around the corner and through the following corridor. More cells lined one side of the passage, and torches spaced sporadically lit their contents. Most were empty, but a few held weathered, skeletal prisoners too weak to call out.
She didn’t look at them, only passed. Their suffering ought not to continue, but she couldn’t afford to help them when her own brother’s lives were at stake.
The passage was straight for some time, then turned a large box-like corner and traveled straight in the other direction. The cells never changed, always lined one wall. They continued to be bare but for the occasional dying occupant.
She went on, growing more worried at the lack of both her brothers and any prison keepers. Sweat started to build on her neck, and the hair at her nape grew damp with it. The longer this rescue took, the more likely the man she had killed was to be discovered.
Again, she met a box-like corner and turned. There she stopped and almost retreated, but paused, seeing that double doors she stood before had no guards. The few cells before it were empty.
With a surge of fear, she noticed that the space where the two doors met were adorned with long streaks of red, as though someone had been scrabbling for a hold with bloodied hands.
She shook herself, brushing off the terror that threatened to cripple her.
Double doors like the ones in front of her couldn’t be opened unseen, she knew, which meant that her best hope was to blast in with all the force she could muster and take out as many enemies as was possible in the least amount of time.
It was, perhaps, not the best plan. It didn’t particularly play toward her strongest skills. But it was surprising, and if there was any word that described her to Narnia’s enemies, it was surprising.
They never saw her coming.
She smiled, a brief flash of humor against the terror of the moment, and charged forward, meeting the doors with her forearms as the plowed into them at full speed. The doors blew open under her force and she sped into the room, sliding to a stop near the entrance as she shot a bolt at the first man her eyes landed on.
He fell with a gargled cry, but she had already turned to the next, slamming the lantern still in her left hand into the man that had risen up to oppose her. The glass smashed against his face, oil spilling out and blazing into an inferno wherever it touched. He screamed and clutched at his skin, stumbling away toward the doors behind her. Barely noticing his reaction, her left arm swung back and grabbed another crossbow bolt, loading it and shooting only moments before a third man would have sliced her torso in two.
There was only one man left, and he was smarter than the others, having had a moment to watch and collect his wits while she dealt with his companions.
They stared at each other, she breathing heavily and he frozen in indecision. As the moment stretched on, really only a few seconds, her mind automatically cataloged the room and its contents.
It was, beyond a doubt, a torture chamber. The walls were lined with gruesome instruments, and the floor was stained with years of torment. On the floor behind the fourth man lay Edmund. His back was bare and coated with blood, and his face was pressed into the stone, mostly hidden. Peter sat slumped in a chair next to him, his head hanging. He also had no shirt, and the bruises on his torso were clearly visible. His wrists were tied to the chair’s armrests with bloodied rope.
At the sight of them, such fury rose in Susan that she might have yelled. She lunged forward, whipping a third bolt out of her pack and loading it as she closed in. The man’s eyes widened, and he retreated, stumbling over Edmund and then backing away so that Peter stood between them. She stopped, so angry that she could feel herself shaking again, and leveled the crossbow at his chest.
“Say one word and you die,” she said.
There was a shriek of agony by the door, and she turned without hesitation to send a bolt into the man she’d set on fire. He dropped like a stone, but Susan had already wheeled back, reaching for a new crossbow bolt.
The man she’d threatened was no longer where he’d been, but was huddled behind Peter, one arm around his neck while his other hand held a knife to Peter’s throat.
“I’ll kill him,” he said quietly. “Put the crossbow down.”
She almost laughed at his poor attempt at gaining the upper hand. It was clear what he thought of her, even after her display, and that made him an easy opponent. Just like all the men that underestimated her, he was vulnerable because of his mindset.
She feigned fear, widening her eyes and beginning to lower the crossbow. His attention wavered, already certain of her cooperation, and that was all she needed to loose her bolt.
He dropped his knife and cried out in pain, falling to the floor and clutching at the wound in his bicep. His mouth opened, his face twisted with pain and anger, and she shot him again, cutting him off before he could call out.
She’d already caused enough noise.
She lowered the crossbow for real, scanning the room and checking each of her four felled opponents. There was no sound, not even from the corridor outside the room, and she breathed easier, looking toward what she knew was the east side of the chamber.
“Thank you, Aslan.”
A roar, quiet yet powerful, both far away and right in her ear, answered her, and she dropped her crossbow and ran to Peter.
Closer now, she could see the damage better. His wrists were raw and bleeding into the rope that bound him. He was breathing harshly, as if his ribs or lungs had been harmed, and when she gently lifted his chin, she found that his eyes were closed. His right eye was black and swollen, recent blood crusted along his eyebrow and cheekbone.
“Peter,” she said, her voice harsh in the silence.
He stirred, moaning, and she did what she could to help him along, stroking her fingers through his hair and whispering to him.
“Su?” he asked blearily, looking at her through one half-open eye.
She smiled shakily and kissed his forehead. “Quiet now.” He watched her as she drew out the short knife sheathed at her hip, slowly growing more awake as he focused on her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. His voice was tired, but not disapproving, and Susan gave him another smile, playful this time.
“Rescuing you.”
He gave a bit of a smirk, but his one good eye shone with pride. She looked down quickly and sliced through the rope. He hissed at the unavoidable jostling, making her wince in sympathy, but a moment more and he was free.
“Can you walk?” she asked, eyeing the bruising on his chest.
He nodded. “I don’t think anything is broken.” Moving carefully, he maneuvered into a standing position, grimacing.
Susan made no protest. She knew full well that if Peter couldn’t move, they couldn’t escape. He had to be able to walk, no matter how much pain it caused.
She turned and crossed the floor to where Edmund lay with his face to the floor. As gently as possible, she slipped a hand under his head and turned it, using her other hand to carefully push him over so he rested on his side.
“Oh, Edmund,” she whispered.
The side of his face that had been concealed was bruised, dark purple stark against his white face. There was a fresh split near his temple, and blood had leaked down and over the bruising, making it even more grotesque. His hair, especially at his nape but also on one side of his head, was wet with blood.
Peter slipped around her and painfully knelt behind Edmund, laying a trembling hand on his shoulder. Susan looked up into his face, and found that he was crying.
“They tortured him,” he told her, his voice raw. “Su, they tortured him, not me.”
Beyond horrified, her stomach boiling, she looked down again and wiped her own tears from where they’d fallen on Edmund’s face.
“He wouldn’t let me tell them…” Peter continued.
“It’s not your fault,” she said thickly, desperate to help at least one of them. She laid her hands over his, squeezing gently. “It isn’t. And he’ll be alright now.”
“I can’t carry him,” he said, his face conveying his panic.
She slipped one arm under Edmund’s torso, cradling his head with her free hand, and met Peter’s eyes, her expression set. “I can.”
~
Susan sat next to Edmund where he lay on a cot.
His wounds had been tended, his face and hair cleaned of blood and dirt, and he now rested on his stomach, eyes closed and face turned toward her. She was stroking his hair, grounding herself in a way she could only do while he was unconscious and unable to protest, and she was calm for the first time since Peter and Edmund had been captured.
Peter was sleeping in a hammock on the other side of the tent, and both her brothers’ quiet breathing was the only sound but for the soft murmurings of the soldiers outside.
Orieus had met them just outside the fortress as they’d escaped. As she’d ordered, her cat guard Taimus had alerted the Cair to the capture of the kings, and Orieus had barely waited to hear that Susan was infiltrating the stronghold alone before he had set out with fifty of Narnia’s best warriors.
Their pursuers were quickly defeated, and the entire group made off into the gathering dusk, pace increasing tenfold once Susan was relieved of carrying Edmund and Peter was swept into the arms of a centaur healer.
Peter and Edmund were cared for, and Susan herself was heralded on every side as Narnia’s warrior queen. Her rescue would become a defining moment of her personal reign, and from that day onward she trained nearly as much as her brothers. It would never be something she delighted in, taking life on the battlefield, but it was a necessity, a skill worth honing for the sake of Narnia.
But that night, she was only grateful. There was a small glow of pride in her accomplishment, but for the most part, she could only send her thanks again and again to the Great Lion as she watched her brothers sleep.
They were safe, and that was because of her. She had conquered her fear in a way she never had before to find them and get them out. She never would have thought she could do what she did, but she had. Aslan had always known she could, she thought, picturing her bow and arrows.
She just had to discover it for herself, and she had.
She was capable of more than just being a queen or being a sister. She was capable of being a warrior. And for her siblings, for Narnia, and for Aslan, she would be.