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Think about all the ways which CS Lewis wouldn't open a chapter. For example he wouldn't open a chapter in the middle of something, and then explain himself afterwards. Every author has his ways of opening a chapter, and if he doesn't, in these an important author, there will be some reason for it. So what are CS Lewis's ways of opening a chapter? One way is to open up the chapter in something reasonable, all too reasonable, and then the main character is knocked out, and he comes to listening to a conversation, which to the main character seems like nonsense. For example Out Of The Silent Planet. Very often he will throw the characters write into magic, and then seeing them in a distant wood, as if nothing were going wrong, it is just wood, and the characters are the thing out of place, as if CS Lewis is saying that there is something wrong with the main characters, not something wrong with the universe. Even though the author and the reader know otherwise.
When you read on author which is well known these tendencies are taken into account, for example other authors will explain things against this backdrop, sometimes assuming that you already know them, or they are explaining them to those who do not know. Thus it is very much out of character for CS Lewis to engage in picking in the middle, and then explain himself towards the back and. It just isn't a CS Lewis thing to do, he will explain things as he goes along, or he will introduce you to a character who thinks he is in a situation that he knows, but doesn't. These are CS Lewis's habits, and they differ markedly from taking up in the middle and then explain afterwards. For example in The Horse And His Boy he describes the character thinking that nothing is going to happen, and then introduces himself to a talking horse who explains that this view is wrong, and he is about to be sold to the visitor of the man who he thought was his father.
In this case, if CS Lewis were writing it, is probably would be how to gather the main characters, which in this case are three, in to 1 group. That being the two brothers, the lion and sisters, and the main army, but even that is paired down, because the lion was paired with his sisters, and the brothers were reunited in past chapters. In other words, to chapters ago everything was diffuse, and CS Lewis began chopping the characters in to smaller and smaller groups. And now he is at the endpoint, where he just needs to regroup three individuals. Which he will now do, a rather I will now do in the manner of CS Lewis. So in a chapter of CS Lewis, that would be what he did.
For example, he might bring the lion and the sisters over a hill, remarking on how small their forces were, and then the lion would take charge, and the two brothers would arrive shortly there afterwards. And there would be a planning session before the real development would occur. That real development would of course be a character from the opposite side, demanding that they surrender, or some such. Of course this being CS Lewis, there would be almost no question as to accepting this. Many authors would meekly accept the course of surrender, but not CS Lewis.
In this case, there would be something about the main oppositional character which would show, even if only in retrospect, the position that the main opposition character is in. for example if the main oppositional character is haughty, that would be noted. In this case, the cruel witch would be shown as being unutterably willing to crush the four characters, and would not even notice it. But subsidiariary, it would be shown that she has become dominated by her crueler self. Actually CS Lewis showed this early, but my decision was to expose it late. It was better theater that way.
So if you will imagine to characters, one a Minotaur, and one a cheetah common up through the thicket, which remember goes downward into the main plain, where the witch was with her army. The Minotaur spoke:
“I have an announcement from the Queen.”
At this point one of the main characters would note that “queen” was an inappropriate name for her, but would be told there was time to correct that after the battle. At which point the lion, or whoever was in charge, would ask what the commencement was.
“Speak and I will listen.” commended the lion. As I said before, I don't like using all of the ways of adding “commented” or “said”, it's very much out of the past, and others which use it really have to look at their command of English. But that is the way CS Lewis wrote, and so I will honor that, though I would not do it in my own writing.
“The queen will disperse the Army, if the four traitor are handed over to her.” in short she wants the humans, because without them there is very little reason to fear anything else..
“She had her chance, and she using deep magic, failed to do so. She does not realize, that I am more powerful than she could imagine.” Then with a roar the lion chased the two, and est. his hold over the battlefield. Then the Lion turned to Peter: “ if you can hold the which and her forces, I will free the stone people, and that will and her reign, but if you fail to do so, she will easily defeat you and then me in turn.”
“I will hold the field, count on it.” Peter was loyal and brave, and meant what he said.
“And one more thing, your little brother has to step up.” said the lion.
Just then Eddie said: “ I have a lot of shame to bear, but I will start here.” you will live that even in honor of CS Lewis, I don't use parentheses to explain things, though that was the fashion once upon a time. CS Lewis did it about once every two chapters, or so.
So the young men, for that is what Peter and Eddie had become, marched their way down in to the Queens area, with its monsters, set amidst stone figures, to take away her vision of what would be happening at her base. Because that was indeed the plan: they would be the bait, while the lion and the young women would fetch reinforcements. Even though there reinforcements were stone.
The acute problem was that in the woods, they were easily hidden, but now in the open, they were painfully aware that if the witch could see them, it would not be pleasant. Thus the young man had to distract them as best they could.
The lion, the two young women, and a few followers moved at right angles to the Army, and would drop off in to the darkness before the Army was going to depart. The lion had a plan, a knew that a tiny gully down the side of the escarpment that the Army had encamped on, would not visible from the Queen's eye, and thus would provide them with cover until the battle would commence. Then they would sneak around and go forth to rescue the men at the Queen's base.
It was only a few minutes, and they could not see their own army, or the Queen's. They were invisible, and less they were discovered by a wandering flying manticore, or some such. They snuck down the escarpment, and were free to do what they had to do. The way was tiny, and narrow, and to each side there were hills that kept them covered.
“Are we going to make it?” Asked Lucy.
“The hills will provide some cover, but we will have to be on guard until we have gotten around to it base. She has pulled up all of her monsters and other things, so there should be little to none defending her castle.”
“What will do at that point?” said Sandra.
“The witch does not destroy, only freezes them in place. I will unfreeze.”
“Like Thomas?”
“I can on freeze him, yes. But are you sure you want?” asked the lion.
“I think he will be welcome in our family.” said Lucy.
“Who are you talking about?” asked Sandra.
“She thinks that a dear friend will be glad to see her again, after he has been unfrozen. And I agree with her, once he saw the enemy, the could not do that.” said the Lion.
Sandra nodded. Just then they reached a tiny wood, in which was the Queen's lair. Around it was a low slung wall, and inside a could not see anyone to defend it. The lion was right: the Queen had thrown all of her defense in to attacking, thus while she looked arrogant, inside she was afraid, because everything was going wrong. Her failure to kill the lion on the stone table was a sign, and she knew that that was the end of her. But she was going to fight to the bitter end, and if she could kill even one of the young men, she might just save the day. It was all she had left.
Aslan then roared and blew down the gate, and stately moved in to the inner sanctum. There were dozens of frozen creatures, but he knew which one he was going to select: a tall, in fact very tall, giant. Then he blew on him gently, and from his breath, slowly, it became flesh, when once it was stone.
The giant roared as if he were still in combat with witch, but then realized that that was not the case.
“Where am I?” He glanced around.
“I am here, giant. And I am your king, Aslan.”
The giant looked around at head level, and then looked down. He immediately bowed to Aslan.
“I want you to break down the inner gates, so that I can free everyone.”
With this the giant made a mighty swing with his ax. And with it came tumbling down the bricks and stones.
Then the three of them, that is the lion and the two young women, went around the villa and proceeded to set all of the frozen creatures free. And in a hidden doorway there was Thomas, and Lucy looked at Aslan, and begged with her eyes to release him. So Aslan breve on him, and their key stood, at first believing that he would turn to stone, and then caught in the web of believing that he would be stoned forever. Because that is the trap: of believing that you are stoned forever, but there is just enough awareness that you will be stoned, until the end of the world. It was a truly nasty fate.
Then after He had liberated all of the creatures, many of them were loyal and tell being stoned themselves, the lion said to them in the backdrop of the castle: “We will have two get back to the battle. Because Peter and friends will not hold out for very long. They were only running a diversion.”
So the creatures picked up the pace, determined to save the Army from its fate. There was a huge throng of them, and they were quite angry indeed. Instead of going around, they went down the middle. And they arrived at the battlefield, where it looked as if the Queen would win.
But that was before the lion came.