Leídan Aznawar of Khand

Leídan and Neida passed by small villages, raised from wood and loam. More to the coast, they came upon towns as well, where lesser and lesser influences were visible from the nomadic inlands. Here arose cities, build of stone. It was unlike from what both knew. Small villages they grasped easily with a local market, but big cities with a wall around not. Neither they felt comfortable inside walls. Leídan was glad about the garb of his people, because it provided him the anonimity he wished for. Nieda had to cover her face anyway, so to avoid any attraction of unwanted men and women, and to hide that she was female. Her female nature could bring her in trouble, if the Umbarian pirates knew. Like the Variags of the plains, they abducted women and children on regular basis to lock up in their own households. In this situation, Neida passed around for a younger teenage brother of Leídan, in case they could not wear the veils for their faces. It had taken another twenty-five nights from the delta river Haruzan to the coast.

The quite curly handwriting on a board along the road was unreadable for both Neida and Leídan. Also it was in a language they didn’t comprehend. They had travelled many miles to the west, and entered strange country. Where colour really reigned here, the colours of their tribe were plain. In the desert was no use for wild colours when the sun burned upon your head. The sun bleached anything. Bright colours would become dull, dark colours shifted a few shades lighter. The large linen cloth covered their head and veiled their faces. Shagur is what they called it, their robes Sehada. They had come around a walled city, which was locally called Gobel Mírlond. But as neither could read the sign along the road, bro and sis didn’t know it. Walls were wrong, they were like a gorge, you could be trampled in it and never come out. The thought nauseated Leídan considerable. Uncomfortable he looked sideways to his sister and then eyed the at least three men high walls. How thick they were, he couldn’t guess. Upon the walls walked men in red and black harnesses and spears they held in their hands. What would spears be off use upon a wall? Leídan, a son of the desert, fell from one surprise into the other.

With Neida it was no differently. Through the eye slit in her headdress, she watched the guards as well. She took care not making eye contact with them, but looking occasionally. They were followed anyhow from above. Her mood brightened when the city fell behind them. They urged their Azumehda on to have the city soon behind them. Leídan sometimes looked behind them if curious people followed them. The Azumehda could be fast, if they had to run. Neither of them fell off during the short run to the coast. They reached the sea in the evening. They forgot the city, as they saw from the cliffs how the sun going down in the west set the water on fire. As creatures of the desert, human and animal stared at this strange phenomenon; believing that the water was a fire pool, where the sun vanished in it. The Azumehda nor Leídan or Neida could place the rouse from beneath them. They stood on the cliffs and watched the Fire Sea. As soon the sun was gone, the Fire Sea turned black as ash in a fireplace. Unsure what this place was both knew they had something to tell when they returned home. They had seen what the sun did to water when it vanished beneath it. They knew it would not be wise to come close to this.
They came upon a group of trees not a few miles more to the north from the sharp point of land into the Fire Sea. It was little oasis where except for some wild animals none camped. Leídan instructed his Azumeh to lie down, so he could step of him. Neida signalled hers to do the same. Both felt stiff and tired from the whole day riding through strange civilised country. While Leídan looked after their Azumehda, Neida built a small fire and prepared some food. They ran pretty low now and somehow she or her brother had to see to it that they assembled new. While dinner cooked, she sent Leídan around the small oasis to see what delicious secrets were hidden here. Leídan did as requested, even if he was hungry now. What he could find meant more variation they could eat. Deep in the oasis was fresh water, where he filled the water sacks and allowed the Azumehda to quench their thirst. Under the large leafs near the ground he found strawberries and blueberries. Despite the darkening sky, Leídan worked quick to assemble as much he could. Tomorrow they would stay here and assemble more to cook them later. They would make jam of the berries and a part would be dried. Both knew different conserving methods without the need of salt.

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After dinner, both knelt down to the east and softly whispered their prayers to the Gods. The legends told that the Gods lived in the east, as the sun would be reborn there and so climb the sky. The sun was the mother of all the men and women, giving warmth and life to her. They knew how plants and flowers loved her, as they opened their heads in the morning and turned to her. The lights laid the hidden world of colour bare and shoved the dark clouds aside. Birds and animals were fond of her too, as they appeared in the mornings from holes and in the open grass fields upon the mountainsides of the Ered Harmal. Birds above also began to sing, soon the first rays of the sun lightened up the sky. Where at night could be so silent, at first light life could burst out in full ecstasy. The Azumenúkhad people hated darkness of the night. The next morning both took after each other a bath in private. Neida went first when Leídan was still asleep. Men and women had to be clean by their beliefs, so they took great care with the rituals. Neida boiled water to wash their dirty clothes and hang them afterwards to dry over the branches in the trees. Everything was boiled out, even their sehadar and shagur. So today, they wore only their normal clothes. Leídan wrung the water out all the clothes, before giving them back to his sister. After midday, he went hunting to see if he could capture a few hares. He came back also with a wingless dead bird. He did the dirty work of skinning the hares and the bird. Some of the meat was baked and dried for the travel ahead. One hare they would eat tonight for dinner. Brother and sister had both their assigned roles, and traditionally they kept to it.

Again they watched the sunset over the Fire Sea. It was both a magnificent as well scaring sight. Neida whispered a prayer for the rest in her mind. Leídan’s face was grim. The sea was not their thing. But their fear was replaced by astonishment when at the horizon sudden appeared a pointy form, indicating some kind of ship. It was difficult to see for them against the darkening sky. Neida pressed her hands together and bowed her head to touch her forehead. Leídan touched her shoulder and pointed to the ship at the horizon. There was light onboard. But as it sailed somewhat closer it was not a rough ship, but a design of more delicacy and finer forms. Then the last rays were gone and the sea was black again, taking the ship also in it. Brother and sister returned to their campfire and settled down for the night. In the morning after prayer and breakfast they broke up and left on their Azumehda the oasis and travelled along the Fire Sea more to the north.

After a day ride they came passed through a shallow point in a river that crossed their path. It had a name, but there was no sign that said it. So nameless for them they urged their Azumehda to walk through the wading point and continue their travel north. Has Adri was another little fishers village at the coast, where a lot of Umbarian pirates sailed the Fire Sea to unknown destinations. Neither Leídan or Neida knew that endless miles of land lay to the north and how far it all stretched, and that it would take years to reach the cold north. They left the coast, avoided the village and rode off to the sand dunes in the east, which would lead to the desert beyond. In this rather dry environment grew here and there vegetations. Both knew the steppes well. The lands of Khandur were mostly the same, before the real desert began. They travelled through the dunes and came then into the hills, where secrets settlements were located of the local nomads. These peoples wore mainly blue coloured robes, their wives never visible in the open. Harondor was not really desert lands, but more to the east was a road that came for some time through desert like land, before it crossed a side arm of the northern river cutting Harondor in two. Half way the riverbanks were green, and a city lay on the route. The Emyn Imladrim hills ran toward the west and in the north, it went over in the Emyn Laer. By the winds from the west, this land was quite dry, but not devoid from life. Leídan and Neida rode on, careful not to try drawing too much attention to themselves.

Nevertheless, it was impossible in these dunes to avoid all human contact. The vegetation became a little richer, the same as animal life on the ground and in the air. They neared an oasis again, where the ground came rockier and thus also human settlement in the form of a camp was hidden between the rocks and against the sandstorms from the south. Hidden eyes had spotted their coming into their lands and watched them. Neida noticed the presented earlier than her brother did and she made a little comment on it. It shook Leídan out of his reverie and he raised his head to scan the low rocks for human life, but saw nobody. “They are there, brother,” insisted Neida soft, almost whispering. Her words were muffled through the veil she wore over her nose and mouth. Leídan heard it anyway. “Yah, we are being watched,” he replied, his words the same way muffled. Neida’s luck to travel as a young man came also that she had a low timbre in her voice. All the women in their family had it, including their mother. Their Azumehda walked on in a steady pace, but bro and sis could feel that their ships didn’t feel at ease. It meant that settlement was near, and that both had to be on their watch. The rocks were here four to five men high and deep ravines changed the low mountain ridge into a maze. Neither bro nor sis went into the maze, not knowing where it would end, or there were secret passageways or that a ravine would be a dead-end. They kept on going while the sun went down in the west, following the ridge toward the north. They had to stop their Azumehda when sudden a group of more than five men on horseback appeared from a side gorge and rode to them in gallop. Leídan drove his Azumeh front, so Neida came into his shadow at his right side. The men neared them from their left, and held their horses in soon they were on speaking distance. The leader of the group called something to them in a tongue they had never heard.

Leídan was a bit nervous by this forced and unexpected meeting. Neida was much calmer and drove her Azumeh a little around him and started to use the sign language they had learned as children. She signalled only that they were travellers and just passed through this country with no intensions to stay or to intrude. One of the men in the group knew the sign language as well, answered that they could not go on, and had to follow them. Neida made a motion with her head to her brother and Leídan knew there was chance to escape this. So he motioned his Azumeh to go toward the strange group of an unknown tribe. The tribes of the plains had a signal language to communicate with each other; also they could use it for smoke of a fire to spread messages. Both spoke their tribal language, as well a few others. But it was now to puzzle out which country language would be off use. Over the Emyn Laer hills learned Leídan lay the land of Laergaladrin that was bordered in the north by a river coming from the southern Ered Duath mountains. The land above was named Ithilien. The names rang strange in his ears and he could speak them with much difficulty.