Proelium

Latin

Battle

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i want to die

honestly

rather than be abandoned

tearfully

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Pax. Pax. Pax. Pax. Pax. Pax. Pax.

That was all that was going on in Sanya's head as she fought. No matter who her enemy was- a Vulture or an Orkny- her thoughts didn't falter and neither did her sword strokes. She was doing this, she was beheading and slicing and slitting and stabbing, because she wanted peace, because she wanted to return to her family. That made things slightly easier, if not better. It made killing easier, if not conscionable.

The battle was going- no, she wasn't about to jinx it. Peter's strategy had worked and most of the Vultures lay dead in the battlefield. However, this had the adverse effect of angering the Giants and making them very ferocious in their fighting, indeed. Of course, then there was also that if you let your emotions take over, it's easy to lose sight of the logic. One couldn't win a war with just logic and one couldn't win one without it, and the same lay with emotions.

She shook her head, and dug her sword into the stomach of a- what was that? Legs of a goat- body of a human and the head of a bull? A minotaur and a faun mix?

Whatever it was, her strike hadn't done much against him, and with a roar, he got to his feet again and pulled Pax out of his stomach and threw it behind him and Sanya's heart sank.

She had no other weapons, apart from a dagger, and- oh, she hadn't even jinxed it, why was this happening to her?

She needed-

"My Queen!" Someone shouted from the side, and the bull-man-goat looked away from her- and she almost smiled.

A distraction.

She quickly dove between his legs and ran to where her bloodied sword lay on the ground.

Glad to see that the bull-goat's responses were sluggish- like the Giants Peter was fighting on the other side, these creatures were big but slow- she leapt back to where the creature stood and drove her sword into his neck. His neck was too big for the sword to sever his head completely from the body- but as she thrust it in with more force, it was just enough to kill him.

But she could take no joy in the kill, as she saw that a human- with a pang, she saw that he wore the armour of her army- had crumpled on the ground, his head bashed in.

Fighting the urge of nausea- it wasn't the sight of blood, but it was the feeling that this man, this soldier had died to give her a chance of escape- she pulled off his cloak and covered his body with it. It didn't matter that she was in the middle of battle- she wasn't going to have his body be torn apart and eaten by the Vultures and carrions.

"Dhanyevad." She whispered her gratitude to him in the Rihaayan tongue, before turning away. She'd avenged his death by killing his murderer, but there were still more to kill.

In the split second she had free before a polar bear leapt on her, she hoped that Peter's side of the battle was faring better than hers.

-

Peter had almost forgotten how being in battle felt. After the battle with Jadis, there had been minor scuffles and fights he'd participated in, but none again like that. In a way, he figured he ought to be grateful- keeping Narnia safe and away from war was, of course, his duty and priority- but he'd missed this.

He remembered his promise to Aura and he intended wholeheartedly to keep it- but he'd missed the rush of adrenaline, the feeling that this could be his last fight ever and he needed to do his best, that he didn't to protect those he loved, his heart thumping with every slash of his sword, his blood pounding in his ears- he didn't like wars and he lamented the deaths, but he loved fighting and the feelings which rose up in him as a result of it.

"Orieus, left flank!" He called, as the Giants changed direction and started charging from the opposite side. Most of the Vultures were shot down, thankfully, or the tide would be completely against them- the Gryphons did away with many of the remaining Vultures quite easily, although from his perspective, the scavengers seemed to be giving as good as they got. He couldn't take much time to scout out the aerial battles, or the rest of the battlefield, he had his own battles to fight.

Peter raised Rhindon and thrust him through any of the monsters who charged at him. If the giants had been smart, they would've sent one very skilled and tactician warrior after him, but instead the largest came at him- the largest, and the stupidest. Such beings had immense force and strength, of course- but from years of sparring against Edmund, Peter had learnt that size wasn't anything if you didn't have smarts and that one should never underestimate the smaller fighters.

He felt somewhat bad every time he had to drive his sword through a stomach or an eye, because he took pleasure in fighting, but never in killing. If he could have solved this with verbal discussion, it would've been better for everyone.

Alas. Things don't work out the way you want them to.

He hoped his battle orders were being executed to plan, because sometimes chaos and instinct works, but sometimes not.

Aslan, why did he always think so much during battle? He never thought so much while doing anything else!

He rushed towards where the largest giants waited with clubs, which was where the bigger centaurs and stealthier fauns had been dispatched to. If the largest were killed or forced into submission, the rest of the forces would surrender as well, and that was his plan. Unfortunately, it was difficult to scope out exactly which one the largest was, so he'd just have to kill all of them- even if they were at the very top, where the mountains truly started sloping.

"King Peter!" Rydram, one of Orieus's sons, galloped up beside him. He was in thrall, enjoying the heat of his first real battle, and he decided to help out the human struggling to run all the way up to the giants. "Climb on my back, it'll be faster."

Peter huffed in gratitude, unable to speak and was astride on the centaur's back in a moment. As they climbed higher and passed more battle, he wished he had a bow and arrows for the first time in his life. Rhindon was handy and irreplaceable, but he had trained more on foot.

Still, he did his best, slashing at anyone who got even remotely close to them, knocking his shield into the beaks of vultures who'd come careening towards them out of the sky, but he did all that with the constant worry that he would accidentally drop his weapons and be defenceless, and that he wasn't doing enough.

Every little bit you're doing is protecting your people and your family, he told himself as he stabbed a young Orkny right through his heart. Every little bit counts.

Rydram glanced back at the King astride him after he charged down a large leopard, and saw that he was putting his sword to good use, "We're almosno-"

"Wha-what?" Peter wondered why the centaur went suddenly breathless and he leaned ahead and felt sick- a stick, sharpened at both end, had been thrown at them and got lodged in Rydram's throat. "No- no-"

He had trained with him. He was Orieus's son. No. He couldn't be- he wouldn't-

"Gah- get off-" He choked, feeling like he was trying to swallow his own tongue, in addition to the ripping pain in his throat. He'd be dead in a minute, he surmised as he saw the blood dripping down, but he couldn't have the High King die with him. He raised his front legs high, high enough that Peter fell off- he had no reins to hold onto nor any stirrups to help him stay in place- and then he cantered away. In the thirty seconds of life he had left, he would kill as many of the monsters as he could. He would go down fighting.

Peter stared after the departing centaur, white-faced, but he couldn't let his shock paralyse him any longer. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen comrades die- but it was always a simply horrific, destabilising feeling.

He looked up to where the giants stood, huge and moss-coloured and grim- and he bit his tongue. He would kill them. He would kill them, or he would die trying.

-

Energy. Sanya was full of energy and adrenaline and anger and grief and a want to go home, and all those things might have helped her swing her sword and kill monsters better, but she felt awful every time she did so.

It was alright to avenge someone and she had looked forward to killing the others- but every time she did so, she felt unpardonably guilty. They were just fighting for what they believe in. They were soldiers, like her, trying to protect what was theirs, like her.

She liked the feeling fighting had on her body- but if given the choice, she didn't know if she'd partake in a battle again. She didn't want to kill anyone- but to defend her home, her loved ones, she would. She remembered how exhilarated and rejuvenated she'd felt on that quest years ago, as she took down seven orknys by herself, and that feeling was still there- but the guilt and regret she felt in her heart as she looked down at the corpses was equally as present.

Still, she fought, because she needed to. She fought, because her people fought. She fought, because her soldiers were dying for her. She fought, because she had people to protect. She fought, because she loved.

She knew she could die. She knew the Sphinx’s prophecy was veritably a death certificate. But death would come regardless of the words of a mythological creature. She was fine with that. It would not stop her from fighting.

"My Queen," Ainaah gasped as he caught up to her in the shadow of a large boulder rolled down by the giants, which had crushed more of the Giants' soldiers than theirs. "My Queen, the Vultures, they've changed their tactics- they're moving away from the Narnian side, they're coming here-"

"Where're the archers?" She asked at once, albeit immediately feeling a sense of defeat. Human archers couldn't compare to gryphons, and they had none of them on their side of the battlefield. "Get word to them to shoot as many flying things they see in the sky- I'm not having my soldiers being picked up and eaten."

"The archers- they're deployed with the Narnian army-" He stopped, turning to slash as a- mutated wildebeest who'd charged at them with outrageously large tusks. "They're not here, Your Majesty, we thought-"

That the Vultures would attack the Gryphons. They'd kept most of their archers on the other side, and that meant that the Vultures would attack and weaken this side. Once weak, the other monsters would charge, and the Narnian army would jump to defend them and they'd suffer defeat. The sense of impending doom was overwhelming.
"What am I supposed to do? How-" Who had she been kidding, she had just had a few years of sparring training, she wasn't qualified to lead an army, she had brought them to their deaths. "I don't- I can't-"

"You have to. Believe in yourself, Sanya." Edmund looked at her, trust and faith in his eyes. "You can do it- Aslan said you could."

How would her hydrokinesis help? It'd practically be like shooting them with water balloons- a feat which Selene was more adept at than she was.

But there was every possibility of their defeat and demise now- her children could be motherless, her country without a Queen. She had- she had to try something. She had practiced as much as she could over the last few years, but she was nowhere near as adept as she needed to be.

Still, she needed to try.

"Ainaah- can our soldiers swim?"

It was all mostly a blur after that. She remembered shouting orders and dispatching a messenger to the Narnian side to retreat and running to the highest point she could find- the stitch hadn't been worth it- but after that, her vision went blue and she couldn't remember anything she'd done.

But she knew she had thought of Edmund.
And she could remember how she'd felt.

There had been a tug in her gut- and a swooping sensation as if she was falling down and then rising up- and she'd felt her fingertips and ears tingle, and she didn't know if it was the wind, or if it was her power throbbing to get out, but that tingle grew into a shiver, and she could feel the droplets scratch under her skin, and she pushed her power, wildly and recklessly and in as many directions as possible. In that second, she felt cool and refreshed- as if she'd had a long swim- before that tingle exploded and she could feel nothing but a storm inside her, a tsunami in her heart and a cyclone in her soul, and she wanted to collapse, but somehow she didn't, and she kept holding on, and let more and more of her power lash out, unaware of what her water was doing, whether it was helping or not.

After some time, the storm steadied inside her, but that tug in her gut and the pulse didn't diminish- and she didn't let it. She would hold as long as she could.

The next thing she knew, something had broken into her bubble of blue and her vision became tinged with red. She could still see nothing but solid colour- but she became acutely aware that wind was licking her waist- which shouldn't have been possible due to the armour- and that the burning she felt at her side wasn't because of her power.

As the burning grew and intensified, she pulled the pulse back in, realising she needed all her senses back- and as she gained her vision back, she looked down to see a hag, shrivelled and malicious, holding a dagger which slick with something liquid high, pointed at her heart.

Panic crept into her throat, and she reacted on instinct- forgetting about the poisoned dagger and Pax hanging at her side- her hands jerking out and pushing the hag back and straight down into the watery lands below.

Her eyes still wide, Sanya registered what had happened- she'd pushed that hag to her death- and that the once-dry and mountainous field was full of water, as high as the largest giants- who were all gurgling and struggling to stay afloat, as well as avoiding the arrows descending down on them from every side.

You could drown them, something whispered to her. Those weapons aren't necessary- one thought and they'd be dead.

She drew her hand into a fist- her other hand going to her side, only to find it matted with blood- and her heart thrummed and there was a tiny jerk in her stomach. She could- she had the power-

Sanya suddenly remembered the Faerie Queen's words- you could be powerful beyond your wildest dreams- and she slackened her fingers, now pressing both her hands to the tear at her side- she didn't want that power, she had just wanted to save her people- and she stumbled back and around to check how everything had gone down, and whether she'd caused more harm or aid.

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Dayo Okeniyi as Rydram

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-✧･: °*✧*°:･✧-
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Dang. Intense.

And, as always, I humbly and unashamedly ask you to vote (and I beg you to comment) on the chapter, please.