A Bit of Something

This little bit of imagining was brought about by a friend casually saying… “You should try fanfiction!” And this was a small attempt at making a certain event come alive a little more. If you are a fan of this certain series you will understand the connection. 🙂

If you read this and have thoughts… please please comment and let me know what you think! I really do appreciate comments! 🙂

Camir woke to a tense whisper in his ear. The air felt close and strained and he sat up with a racing heart. His father, Sabatim, grabbed him out of bed and held him by the collar of his tunic. He could tell his father was scared to death, not because his voice sounded scared, but because he was trembling from head to foot.

“Don’t make a sound, boy, or you’ll get us all killed. Slip on your clothes and come.”

“Is Mother co…”

“Hush or I’ll box your ears till they fall off,” said Sabatim savagely. He was hurling blankets and bits of bread into a sack.

Camir quickly dressed and began pulling on his boots as his mother entered the hut. The young boy glanced at her face. It was white, tight lipped, and her eyes were wet. She was also trembling, but she didn’t speak a word.

“Out the door. Now!” commanded his father. “I’ll follow once I dig up the box.”

Without a sound, Camir and his mother slipped out the door. The night was humid and stiff, and even the owls seemed shy about hooting. One of the large, wise birds stared down at them from a nearby tree.

“It’s so quiet,” breathed Camir to his mother. She just nodded and turned away, tugging at the shawl over her shoulders. All they could hear was the sound of Sabatim digging with his small spade. The box was under Camir’s straw bed, buried a few inches below the mud floor, and it held all the money they claimed as their own. After a few long minutes, his father was beside him with the sack strapped to his strong back. With a nod to the waiting pair, Sabatim moved off at a rapid speed into the trees. Camir clutched his father’s massive hand and sprinted to keep up. The moon was bright, and for this reason Sabatim kept his family in the shadows as much as possible. His wife seemed to have no problem keeping up with his relentless pace even after the hem of her wool dress became soaked with dew and mud. She just drew the shawl tighter over her shoulder.

Finally, they came to a break in the trees where a few other men sat with their wives and children. Most of the children were asleep on the ground and the babies lay in small wooden baskets. The women sat on a few fallen logs, their hands covering their faces. The men were all pacing. As Camir’s family crept through into the clearing they were met with drawn swords. But when their eyes fell on Sabatim they sheathed their weapons and welcomed him warmly. Camir drew closer to his mother as the men began to talk.

“Now you’re here we must fly. You live so close to the mountain that it took us a great deal of time to get here and warn you.”

“I’m here now, so it don’t make a difference. Are we off? Up the mountain?”

“Up, or around. There’s a whole range and we might as well pick the largest.”

“The largest is the one in front.”

“But it’s closest to the trouble. They won’t have a problem hunting us out like wounded raccoons.”

“Not if we hide well.”

The largest of the men, who had not spoken a word as of yet, cleared his throat and the other five fell silent.

“We’ll travel up tonight. There are enough holes and caves to hide us a good while. And after a few weeks we’ll have the strength to crush those left in the valley. But if one of you dares to even think of treachery, I’ll throw you down the mountain with my own two hands. Either you stick with me, or I deal with you. Is that clear?”

“Right. Very clear, Captain Caspian,” said Sabatim. He was their Captain, and you didn’t dare cross him.

The six men roused their children and wives and they all hurried through the wood toward the cruel cold mountain. It looked black and silver in the moonlight and as they approached the foot of it, it seemed miles tall. Without a pause or slackening of pace, the men began to climb, many hoisting their children onto their shoulders. Camir was too big for this sort of ride, and so he followed the best he could in his father’s footsteps.

In no time at all the forest grew smaller beneath them. The rocks got colder and the air became thinner. The lights in the village far below glowed fiercely in the valley. Camir knew enough of the tension between the men of the village to understand why they were leaving so suddenly. Something must have set off the tentative, shaky peace they’d been living in for the last few months. In fact…

“Captain! Torches!” hissed Sabatim, looking over his shoulder.

Captain Caspian paused for the first time since they’d started the trek and looked over his shoulder. Crawling along the ground between the village and the forest they could all see a line of small lights bobbing up and down.

“We must keep pushing,” hissed Caspian.

The pace was nearly doubled and Camir had to cling to his mother’s hand for support. Up and up they went. Higher and higher. An eerie glow came from below, but the men didn’t seem to notice. Still not a chirp from a bird or a buzz from an insect, and the silence seemed to fill Camir’s ears with an almost deafening intensity. To his relief, a small snapping noise quietly grew audible. A rustling, snapping sound. The glow below became bright and lively. The men with torches had set the forest ablaze.

“Fools,” muttered Sabatim. “Trying to smoke us out but they’ll burn themselves up searching for us. Once the whole forest catches it will be a matter of seconds before the whole town is in ashes.”

The Captain only nodded, but never looked back. He was headed for a small cave a few yards in front of them and a little to the right. It was above the path by at least four feet and so it took some struggle to get all the women and children up and in. Caspian was the last to enter, because he stood by the edge of the path looking down the mountain at the burning forest and small quiet village. And then he spotted the torches moving up the mountain side. The Captain turned from the view and leapt into the cavern.

“Get back. All of you,” he ordered through bared teeth. The cave seemed to stretch for miles inward and once again they were on the march. Then, without warning, one of the men shattered the silence with a cry of terror. The cry was taken up and doubled and tripled until the whole cavern rang with shrieks and screams. Something was pulling them forward. Something was dragging them down. Something was lifting them up. They couldn’t go back, and they were plunged into suffocating silence.

Everything was black. Then the horizon turned gold and purple. The men rubbed their eyes and looked toward the rising light while the women hushed the crying children and infants. Camir stood by his father, looking toward the color in the sky. The sun suddenly blazed out in front of them and they took in their surroundings, shading their eyes from the blinding light. They weren’t on the Island anymore. There was no water in sight. The trees looked strange and tangled, while the flowers seemed surprisingly large and colorful. They turned back to see what opening they had come through. How did the cave open out into such a different landscape? But behind them they only saw more sky and more strange trees and rolling hills. There was no way back.

And thus, Caspian the 1^st, or Caspian the Conqueror as Telmarines call him, first came to Telmar.

Love,

Hannah Jo <3