This is now rewritten to reflect what I'm told about the overall plot
Watching the stone bridge from the nearest available concealment on the Archenland side was a Talking Tigress named Ninecatcher. She was not native to Narnia, but her distant ancestors had been; Aslan had commanded them to migrate far south, to establish a sort of colony in lands which are seldom even hinted at in the tales of Narnia. The emigrant Narnians had not forgotten their place of origin; now that evil was about to befall the ancestral kingdom, Ninecatcher and her husband Gripstone had been chosen by Aslan to travel back northward, to seek opportunities to aid and protect Children of Adam and Eve in the grim new era that was impending.
This pair had been chosen to go first--others possibly following later--both because their children were all sufficiently grown, and because they had special skills for travel in difficult environments. Gripstone being the best cliff-climber of all tigers, the couple had tried a week ago to steal into Narnia by the less-defined path over the mountains. This, to make it less apparent to any unfriendly creature within Narnia that these tigers had come from _outside_ Narnia. The plan probably would have succeeded...if not that four Minotaurs in the service of the White Witch were scouting the same route at the same time. The mutually hostile parties had met on a ledge that allowed only one against one.
Gripstone, dutiful husband, had gone in front to face the foe. Three of the armed Minotaurs he had slain with fang and claw; but the third, before dying, had wounded him in return with both axe and horn. It had been left to Ninecatcher, vaulting over the fallen Gripstone, to slay the fourth Minotaur just in time to save her beloved; then she had had to bring him, half-drag him, back from the perilous trail, back into Archenland. Gripstone was in friendly human hands now. Ninecatcher had been assured that her husband would live to stalk again; if the medicines of the Centaurs could be obtained for him, he might be in full fighting condition again as soon as three weeks after the time of his injury. While parted from his wife, Gripstone would be doing what he could to make Archenlanders aware that their nation would soon be deprived of its ally on the north.
For Ninecatcher to stay beside her husband during his convalescence might cost human lives, for it was not revealed to them how much progress Jadis had already made in her takeover plans. So Gripstone had urged his wife to carry on their mission as best she could until he could rejoin her. Which was how Ninecatcher came to be watching the other access route into southern Narnia...looking, listening and smelling for any clue to whether foes were already monitoring this crossing.
