Wanted ? Peter Pevensie [2]

Chapter XXII - A Captain Goes Down With The Ship

They stuttered at the name.

Jaxon straightened his back, "The living are not done with him yet. He will face a traitor's punishment by Loxlian tradition before he meets the gates of Tash."

Marian's hands shook, losing her husband in a battle, and not long after watching her children suit up was not easy on the Lady of Loxley. But she saw it as clearly as I do. They weren't backing down. They teased and fought as all siblings but they were also each other's greatest defenders. The look in their eyes showed no fear and no hesitations. The five siblings would take on the whole army if they needed to.

In the corners of my mind, I could see the pride their father held for them. Though he never intended on leaving so soon, he left them with all the strategies and strength to assure they would prosper with or without him. Loxley was always doing to be in good hands.

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All the years of sword fighting and training. As the battle came into view. I would be one of gunpowder and lead. The blockade was set, and just as they were told the White Witch living inside Ashton's body came from the west.

The ships were stolen from the port off the coast of their camp. Canons were drawn and a lone girl standing at the front of the boat. She shined like the sun in full gold armor. She wore a self-created crown and acted like she had the right to wear it.

It wasn't the ships or the soldiers that rode on them that scared Edmund. It was the storm that followed. If the sun had risen, no Narnian could see it through the black clouds. The only thing that lit the sky was the flashes of lighting. The sails she filled with bone-chilling winds, blowing snow over even the Narnian boats over a mile away.

Edmund didn't wait for the storm to reach him. He signaled into the angry waters. His eyes stayed on the White Witches ships. Sirens arched over her ships, going up, taking a soldier off, and then dragging them to the depths.

The Witch responded by lightning fires across the surface of the water. It rages bright and furiously. The mermaids that had already started their leap, were chard before they got to the other side. The shriek of their flesh rang through or ears like knives.

She gathered all the fire in one direction, battling across the open ocean. Flames shot to the center of my boat.

"Abandon ship!" I ordered. After instructing his siblings to go, Jaxon, the title of Lord of Loxley, comes at a sad time. He stayed with me, assuring everyone was off before we took orders. I threw open the hatch of the below deck, "Up now! Get off!"

The flames had already started to creepy through the wet belly of the ship. "All clear!"

We dove off together. Swimming as fast as we could to the next ship. The Witch did not make it easy, making the water harsher and harsher. I couldn't see the ship I was swimming to between paddles.

Luckily, a mermaid came to our aid, putting us on the next boat and letting us to the ladder. But that was not even the beginning of our problems. With an entire crew of wet soldiers that just faced a long and dreadful swim, we exerted energy we couldn't afford to lose.

My teeth chattered. While dripping wet and shivering in their temperatures, we might not even last the hour before hypothermia kicked it. That's what she despised about us, that we were human. She sought out the part of us that could be killed and exploited it. The Hood siblings and I would fall first, the spring animals next, and then, if she didn't finish them off herself, the thickly furred animals.

Fires were lit in barrels, but could barely raise a flame above three inches in this cold. That wood was too wet and the cold was overpowering the flame before it lit.