Dwimmerlaik

Author’s Notes: A lot of the terrain described herein comes from studying the Atlas of Middle-earth—a very useful text—and I’m sure if you’ve read the Fellowship of the Ring you may recognize some of the places. Since Tolkien gives us little detail of the lands north, I’m left to guess.


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Part Six

A Horrific Discovery

The rangers rose before the sun and left the ominous standing stones behind them. Amon Sûl’s lonely height appeared even more burnt-out and spectral with early-morning mists still clinging to the damp stones like old ghosts as they passed. They found the overgrown path paralleling the skirts of the Weather Hills unwinding north. Ahead, stretched a shadow of woodland which they hastened toward as the afternoon warmed.

A languorous breeze stirred lace patterns of branches across their backs and shoulders. It was a deceptively bright, beautiful day. Déjà vu crawled down the back of Aragorn’s skull and itched between his shoulder blades as he set foot under the trees. He twisted over his shoulder to see if any of the others had sensed what he did but they still loped grimly on, their faces alert and hands lingering close to weapons. The heavy silence of the wood did not mean safety.

Though it was cooler in the shade, the men did not relax. The close density of the trees made them feel trapped and airless. Dried leaves and bits of bark crackled and snapped far too loudly under their boots. Aragorn started when their movement disrupted a crow hiding in the greenery. It took off with an echoing croak into the sky. Aragorn followed it until it was a speck high above them and inhaled deeply to try to slow his heart. His eyes flicked over the heads of the stragglers in the back and saw the bend in the road curving back through the trees.

Like lightning it struck him.

He had been here before but never in the light of day. Always in the dark…to one side of the road…a ghost, unable to cry out or give warning as they were cut down…

“Estel? What is it?”

Halbarad’s voice seemed to come from far away; with difficulty Aragorn pulled himself back and glanced at his friend. He hadn’t even noticed he had halted in the middle of the road for seemingly no reason. Now that they had stopped and the wind was still again, Aragorn could hear a faint noise. A restless buzzing.

Then he was running, ignoring Halbarad’s anxious inquiry. He could hear them yards before they were near enough to see and a sick feeling swooped through his stomach as a cloud of blowflies disturbed from their nesting rose up in an angry swarm.

He stopped dead at the hooves of a large something stretched across the path like a barrier. It might have been a horse but predators and steady wear of time and weather had stolen much of its form. A nauseously tangible stench clung to the heavy air and Aragorn, unaccustomed to battlefields yet, recognized the stench of death only from what was around him. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before and whatever fear his nightmare had gored into his heart, the reality was a hundred times worse.

Nearest to him, a stab of crimson light sliced through the leafy branches and lit on a handsome, strong-jawed face.

A terrible slash split the soldier wide from right hip to left shoulder, leaving a gaping wound even an elven-strong body could not heal. There were other green uniformed bodies, half-hidden in the gloom around him. Aragorn dimly heard the others catch up to him and felt their horrified silence like a lead weight on his chest.

Dried and flaking blood swirled in the dust at his feet as he walked numbly through the carnage. The path was littered with shattered spearpoles, swords, and other bodies, grotesque, blackened shapes—orcs. Nothing stirred save the insects and no sound broke the deathly stillness save a tentative cricket way back in the woods.

The remains of a captain hung, eviscerated and decapitated, in the fork of an elm tree. The elven warriors had been left to lie in the sun and the subsequent days of rain and wind had done little to preserve them.

Angrad was so green he looked ready to be sick. Galen put out a hand as though to touch the bloodied thing on the tree and retracted it, unable to express the depth of his horror.

Names and ranks flashed across Aragorn’s eye as he glanced from face to face. They were dead. Just like in his dream. He had known in his heart that they would be too late but that did not stop the bitter sting of failure from driving home. He thought of Haldir.

“Search them, try to find out who they are,” he said, his tongue thick and unwieldy over the words. “We won’t leave them here for the crows.”

Not all of the warriors had fought and died on the path. The rangers spread out into the surrounding woods, calling back to one another when they found more of Rivendell’s finest locked in death grips with their last foes. With a sigh, Aragorn bent and hauled an orc’s carcass off the legs of an elf warrior. He searched the face of every single one but all of them were dark-haired and the familiar golden form he sought with a mixture of dread and anguish he did not find.

Haldir would have fought, of that he was terribly certain. He wouldn’t have let the orcs take him without a bitter struggle.

“Estel! Over here!”

His heartbeat leapt up into his throat and his mouth went dry at the sound of Eldacar’s shout. Forcing his legs to move, he stumbled towards the man’s voice.

Two rangers including Eldacar held another between them. He was not one of the Dúnedain. He had the thin, sly mien of a fox and scrawny limbs but wiry with strength judging from the way Eldacar and Menelir were having a hard time holding onto him.

The others came running at the sound of the commotion and at the sight of the overwhelming numbers the stranger slumped in his captors’ grasp. Rather long in the limbs and rakish, he looked not unlike a scarecrow stuck in the wrong field as he treated the company with an ingratiating smile. He had weird, flat, shifting eyes that darted nervously from one face to another as a wolf looks for a gap in a ring of woodsmen.

Aragorn took his eyes from the stranger long enough to nod at Eldacar, “What’s the trouble?”

“There were two or three of the elves over there,” Eldacar jerked his head towards an outcropping of rock a little ways behind them. “Looks like they made a last stand. We surprised this one over a fire. We found him holding this.”

Aragorn caught the glittering thing Eldacar tossed him and his heart which thumped somewhere in the vicinity of his throat plummeted through his boots. It was a cloak clasp, beautifully wrought of silver filigree and green crystal in the shape of a mallorn leaf. There was only one warrior he knew who would bear such a token.

The ranger closed his fingers around the clasp so tightly the pin pierced his palm before fixing the stranger with a hard stare. “You took this from the dead.”

The sticklike thief snorted defensively and shrugged off Eldacar’s hold. “I’ll have you know I found that lyin’ on the ground. Discarded more likely.”

“And these other things?” the silver-haired ranger growled, kicking open a sack lying at their feet. Its contents spilled out, glittering in the sun: trinkets and talismans warriors carried with them as good luck charms or as remembrances of loved ones.

“It’s not like they’ll need it anymore.”

“You didn’t even wait for them to stop breathing before you stripped them, did you?” Halbarad snarled, grasping the smaller man by the collar and shaking him like a dog worrying a rat.

The instant the man’s hands closed on him, the smaller one lashed out and caught the ranger in the shin with his heel. Something flashed in his hand.

Halbarad flung him aside as the blade came up. The man twisted and landed lithely in a crouch. The weapon on first glance looked like the end of a sickle broken off near the tip with the thicker end wrapped in a rag.

“Put another hand on me, and I’ll relieve you of it.”

Aragorn pressed Halbarad back. “Stay back. All of you.” He addressed the stranger. “No one is going to hurt you. Can you tell us your name?”

Halbarad glanced at his chief as though he thought Aragorn a bit touched but the polite request seemed to ease the stranger’s ire. He straightened and the blade lowered slightly. “Veil.”

“Strange name,” Halbarad said, already disliking the stranger.

Veil’s eyes rolled over and dismissed him.

“Do you live around here?” Aragorn kept his voice soft but the man jumped as though the ranger had taken a thrust at him.

“Live?” The man chuckled mirthlessly and starting scooping up the shining pieces he had taken from the elf warriors. “Y’can have the trinkets. For food?”

Halbarad leaned close to Aragorn. “Our caches are low enough without having to share them with mendicants.”

Veil heard him and his heavy eyelids flickered. “Gold’s very well and good but you can’t eat or drink it. Bet you’d want some keepsakes of your…friends were they?”

“Out of the question,” Halbarad snapped. “I wouldn’t give you a handful of grain even if you hadn’t been stealing from the dead, orc-sired filth.”

“Halbarad,” Aragorn chided softly and the older ranger subsided, scowling.

“Forgive my friends their ill tempers,” he said in an attempt to smooth ruffled feathers though the blood still pounded in his own ears. “The elves were friends of ours and seeing them like this...”

Veil nodded and something darkened in his eyes though they kept darting every which way. The bones in his wrist stuck up at sharp angles and Aragorn could have wrapped his fingers entirely around his forearm.

“You may eat with us if you like. We have little but we will share what we have,” Aragorn said, ignoring Halbarad’s dirty look. A couple of the other rangers were looking uneasy at their chief’s pronouncement.

“How can we t-t-trust someone we d-don’t know?” Angrad interjected. The expression of loathing looked surprisingly out of place on his youthful visage.

Veil’s sleek, dark head swiveled around like an owl’s and his eyes narrowed mockingly. He stared at Angrad for a long time and something skittered under his inscrutable expression. “Don’t know?” he echoed softly. “I guess we’ll just have to t-t-t-try.”

Halbarad took a protective step forward as Angrad flushed a dull, dark red. He didn’t trouble to lower his voice. “You watch your mouth. Estel, the man is a complete scoundrel. How do we know he’s not in league with the orcs who attacked them?”

Aragon grabbed his subaltern’s arm and yanked him a few feet away, dropping his tone to a hiss. “All the more reason to keep him close. He may know something of use to us. Like what happened to the others.”

“He’s right,” Galen who had been listening in said, his face very pale. “Come. We have greater concerns at the moment. We must build a cairn before it gets too dark to see. Let’s not leave our companions dishonored here.”

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While the rangers gathered together their slain companions, those who had butchered the elves of Rivendell were engaged in an only marginally better trade.

The high sun boiled on the sweat and dust-streaked backs of the laborers; and the steaming air shivered with the clanging echo of hammers rising and falling wielded by aching and numbed hands. The quarries or the “pits” as they were called by those who toiled in them were well-named: sheer-sided and treacherous as a newly sharpened blade. An almost vertical cutting of shallow, stone stairs provided the only entrance and exit. Long slave-chains stumbled down them every morning and staggered up every evening.

Since the orcs abhorred sunlight, it was usually men who surveyed them during the daylight hours but they were hardly better than orcs themselves. Either driven by a desire to please their new master through mirroring his cruelty or by fear of repercussion, they often drove the workers far beyond their endurance. The monotonous, back-breaking work helped them weed out the weak and kept the strong exhausted.

One of the workers paused and swiped a hand over his face, leaving a streak of dark grime across his forehead. Though he’d wrapped them in rags to protect them his hands were blistered and scoured from hauling the rough stone and the one holding the blunt chisel was slick with sweat. The thick chains connecting his wrists didn’t help for they were well over forty pounds of heavy iron and checked his usually smooth pace. He readjusted his grip and lifted the clinging weight of golden hair off the back of his neck to provide some kind of relief from the pounding heat.

A particularly volatile and malevolent slave driver caught sight of him and flicked a whip in his direction. “Get back to work, you lazy slowcoach! That south wall won’t repair itself!”

The slave raised scornful eyes the color of hematite to his tormentor’s face.

The man’s flabby jaw tightened. “Defiant still are you? You must be new. You don’t know how things work around here yet. I tell you to move, you move. You haul stone until your arms break and then you do it some more. And you don’t stop until I tell you to stop is that clear?”

The slave made no sign he had heard but continued to stare at the driver who, a craven at heart, cracked the lash. It flicked the air threateningly a hairsbreadth from the slave’s face but he didn’t even twitch. The next time, it opened a weal three inches long along the worker’s bare shoulder. Still, he didn’t move. Unnerved, the driver appealed to the overseer in the shadows.

“The elf’s acting up again, sir.”

The chief overseer, the wiry Critz, cast his eyes lazily in the complainer’s direction. Keeping well out of the sun in the shaded part of the quarry, he reached out and stroked the pale, pointed head of a large wolf that lolled at his side. Sighing, he rose and stretched, the corded sinews in his arms standing out like red-purple blood splotches on a newly slain deer. His limber frame stepped out into the sunlight but he only blinked twice. He reached the human and elf in three leaping strides. Pausing briefly, he surveyed both of them then his clawed hand snapped out and struck the errant slave to the ground.

The not-entirely-unexpected blow gave Haldir the taste of blood in his mouth as he fell hard onto his forearms. He coughed, swallowed dust and blood and tried to get up but a boot heel in the spine nailed his chest to the dirt. Somewhere above him, he heard a low growl and massive, gray paws trotted past a foot from his head.

“You’re having trouble taking orders, aren’t you, elf? I thought obedience was a requirement for all good soldiers,” Critz intoned pedantically above him. He heard a quiet snicker and guessed the driver was enjoying this. The orc ground him into the dirt for good measure, the sharp edges of rocks digging ever deeper into the soft flesh of his injured side but the elf merely gritted his teeth and didn’t cry out, knowing the orc wanted him to.

Hard-nailed fingers dug in close to his scalp and hauled him halfway up by his hair. Spittle flecked his jaw as the orc breathed in his ear. “You don’t get back to work and I’ll strip the skin off every single one of them except you. Got that?”

The last few weeks had been wasted trying to break the elf down. Beating had done little for he stood up to their worst punishments. Consecutive shifts of hard labor exhausted guards sooner then elven endurance. In the end, the orc overseer learned the only way to make the elf cooperate was to threaten innocent workers with his punishment.

Unwanted tears pricking his eyes from the cruel grip, he nodded once and the overseer shoved him away. Breathing hard, Haldir scrambled to his feet and heaved his chunk of rock into the waiting cart with an energy born of frustration and helpless rage. Half his scalp felt stripped away and blood trickled from his lip. He licked it bitterly and wished death on both of them.

Merciless even to allies, Critz spun and backhanded the guard viciously. “And you! You keep control of this lot or it’ll be your hide I nail to the door.” Snarling to himself, he walked towards the center of the quarry gesturing at the drivers to herd their slaves over. Aside from torturing their only elven prisoner, Critz’s other favorite game was “step up the mark.”

With a long nail, he gouged a line in the dust. Perspiration crawled down the backs of their necks as the workers, encouraged by several cracking lashes, shuffled into a rough semblance along the line, the chains clinking and gradually silencing enough for Critz’s thin voice to be heard.

“Sniff ‘em out, my sweet.”

The sand-colored wolf, led on a long leash, prowled up and down among the nervous slaves. The animal’s eyes were filled with an inhuman glitter as it paced and suddenly stopped, growling, in front of a man who barely had the strength to raise his head to meet the handler’s eyes as Critz beckoned him forward.

Haldir heard a sharp intake of breath from the woman beside him but he didn’t take his eyes from the man who was brightly visible with a scarlet sweat cloth around his brow. His chains trembled with nerves. No one moved or spoke save for the soft sobbing of the man until Critz cuffed him into silence.

“You’ve been stealing,” the orc accused in a filing rasp that carried to all corners of the quarry.

The man dithered, shaking so hard his knees gave out but he shook his head mutely, furiously. Sweat sheened his temples.

“Don’t lie.”

The wolf ran a pale tongue over long, black lips, eyeing the man hungrily with the fur on her nape standing up rigidly like spines. The worker seemed fascinated by the fiery green eyes that bored into his. He could only keep shaking his head when the orc snapped his fingers and the wolf’s jaws fastened over his face.

Haldir averted his eyes from the grisly spectacle. But he couldn’t block out the earsplitting screams or the harsh, ringing silence when it finally fell.

The slave driver who had threatened Haldir earlier bent down and hauled the wolf away to search the dead man’s pockets. He looked up, his sunburnt skin slightly white under the peeling, “He’s not carrying anything, sir.”

“Oh, well. Now I know no one else will,” the orc said with a nasty snigger. The accusations, of course, had been false—Critz had done that to amuse himself and to weed out the weak and sick so a stronger slave could take his place.

Haldir closed his eyes so the cruel creature wouldn’t see the hatred in them. Beads of sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and made his tunic stick to his back as the drivers cracked their lashes overhead to get them back to work.

The cages where the slaves were housed were located near the more secure north wall. The iron bars faced a long stretch of muddy parade ground and the blank stone wall along the outside of the fortress. Come evening, the drivers crammed their workers like cattle back into the wide cages and their fetters removed save Haldir’s. He was still being punished for his earlier misbehavior.

Slumping against the back wall, he thumbed grit from underneath the cuffs which made them irritating and even more uncomfortable against his chafed skin. Hunger gnawed at his belly. He hadn’t eaten since he had been taken, preferring fasting to the unappetizing gruel thrust at him through the bars. But that part of his pride was breaking. He needed strength to fight and he couldn’t have strength without food.

A vibrating series of clangs echoed down the cell block: the rations master swiping his ladle against the bars to summon the slaves forward for their daily meal. Reluctantly he pushed himself up and shouldered to the iron grille with everyone else sticking their hands through to receive palmfuls of some lukewarm sticky mess out of a large pot. The orc who passed out the meal had heard about the elf’s defiance. He dumped a spoonful of the grits on the dirt floor with a foul grin.

“You can lick it up like the dog you are.”

He dodged so sharply backwards as the elf’s hand shot out at him that half the mess splattered over his trousers. He cursed as his companion rapped the prisoner’s outstretched arm hard causing it to snap back within the darkness.

The rations master kicked dirt into the prison and snarled, “You’re not going to last long here with a temper like that, elf,” he sneered, licking white flecks off his face. “Critz has got his beadies on you. Under him, they all break sooner or later. I hope it’s later for you—more fun when you finally snap.”

“Thanks a lot. You just cost us the only food we’re likely to get,” one of the prisoners snarked at him, smashing his fists against the bars when the guards had gone on.

Haldir glanced at the thin figure; his ribs showed underneath the shredded remnants of what at one time may have been a tunic. “Sorry.”

“ ‘Sorry’ doesn’t fill our stomachs does it.” The young man threw himself against the wall and eyed the elf balefully. “Behaving like that’s a quick way to get yourself killed. Do us all a favor and hurry it up.”

“I won’t be here long enough for them to kill me,” Haldir said with more confidence than he felt. The manacles were cutting into his wrists.

“Farlog is already dead. How many more need to get their faces eaten off before you give it up? Critz knows.”

Haldir ignored him and turned towards a gaunt, hollow-cheeked woman who had been watching with brightening eyes. “How are we doing with the weapons, Sayna?”

The woman spoke with slurred difficulty for her jaw looked like it had been broken at least twice and healed badly but her eyes burned with an almost fanatic fervor. “I managed to collect a few more sharp rocks in my skirt today. They didn’t notice. And Henna,” she put a proud arm around a young girl who couldn’t have been more than ten. “She did real well. She sneaked a bit of a broken chisel that might fit the lock.”

“Good.”

With a glance over his shoulder to make sure no guards were near, Haldir squeezed his raw wrists out of the fetters with a deep sigh of relief. He flexed them painfully, waiting for the tingling to subside as blood finally started circulating properly. It had taken him the better part of sixteen days and nights with a meticulously crafted, stone shim and a lot of strength to spring the lock and slip his hands free. He had worn his wrists bloody.

The routine of the prison guards had been easy enough to memorize and he had even convinced some of the slaves, many of whom were still new to the lash, to join him. Haldir had fanned that into full-blown determination and one by one they pilfered what they could from their workplaces that would aid in the revolution to come: broken bits of tools, sharp rocks, even a half-forged dagger from the armory. A near fortnight and more had gone into preparation. They were almost ready, he was sure.

The only, really irritating obstacle remaining in the way was Torenul.

“I don’t have to remind you this is suicide. I’ve been here two years—that’s longer than anyone’s ever come close to lasting. I thought about running at first too. And tried it.” The young man who had first snapped at Haldir rolled up his tattered pant leg to reveal an ugly mass of badly-healed keloid scars they’d already seen plenty of times before. “I got ten feet before Critz’s pet jumped me.”

He dropped his pant leg. “There’s no getting out and anyone who thinks that’s a blind fool. You saw what happened today—they’d kill you just for fun,” his eyes narrowed at the only elf in their midst. “With you, they wouldn’t even need much of an excuse.”

“Better to die a fool than a slave,” Haldir murmured. The hopelessness around him was like a sucking vacuum and had already begun to wear on him.

“Well you’re going to be a dead one if Critz finds out,” Torenul said. “How do you know someone in here’s not passing everything onto him?”

“Those who treat with orcs are the worse fools,” Haldir said. “Death will be their only reward.”

“Stop being so cheerful, Torenul,” Sayna said. “We’re almost out of here. You’re not going to spoil it for us. When are we going to do it, Haldir?”

“As soon as we can.”

Soft murmuring like a rushing wind swirled in the cage. Some of the twenty-odd slaves packed in with them were shaking their heads in disgust but more were looking fearful and excited. It had been a long time since they’d had any hope.

Torenul raised his hands in supplication but his expression twisted with dark foreboding. “You’re only going to make it worse for the rest of us. You’ll see.”

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Ruddy flamelight flickered across his face casting half in uneven shadow. Aragorn sat in front of a small, dry fire, ignoring the sparks erupting from the knotty wood inches from his cloak. He was wholly concentrated on the object rotating between his fingers. The mallorn pin absorbed the firelight with every turn until the stone gleamed with autumnal light.

He’s alive. Aragorn closed his hand tightly over the pin again and pressed his forehead against it. He had to keep believing that. They had found thirteen of the score of elves who had ridden out of Imladris weeks ago (including Galen). The other seven, they guessed, had been taken captive.

Aragorn sighed and glanced over his shoulder at the just visible pile of stones that marked the last resting place of Rivendell’s warriors. Grief ghosted over him and he squeezed his eyes shut. Tossing another pine faggot in, he stoked the fire to a feverish blaze until the heat seared his cheeks and the light caused whirling sparks to dance before his eyes. He didn’t want to lay in the dark again tonight; it made it too easy to imagine the worst. They had found the Rivendell company but any trace of their killers had been long trampled or washed away. There was nothing more to find and no one to ask… Except…

Aragorn got abruptly to his feet, ignoring the ache in his leg, and picked up the untouched plate Halbarad had pointedly placed beside him more than an hour ago.

Veil sat with his back against a buckled stone wall that may once have formed the garth of an ancient homestead. At Aragorn’s insistence his hands remained unbound though he had been relieved of his broken sickle and Halbarad sat on the ledge above him with his sword across his knees. The thin, vulpine man looked up with wide eyes when Aragorn sat down next to him and offered him the plate and a flask.

A beat in which the man’s eyes darted from the ranger’s face to the food then snatched it out of his hands. After a quick, suspicious sniff, he began shoveling food into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Halbarad grimaced in disgust and turned his face away.

“How long have you been out here?” Aragorn asked after the man took the first edge off his hunger.

“Good food this.” Veil licked his lips and tore off a hunk of bread with his teeth. His calculating eyes measured the tall, grim-faced man with the troubled eyes but the offering of food had lowered his suspicion a little. “What day is it?”

When Aragorn told him, he flicked a few crumbs off his scrubby chin. “Too long then.” He cast a glance around the camp and up at Halbarad. “I don’t feel like talkin’ about it.”

The ranger nodded understandably, his eyes falling to the long hands curled around the plate. His sleeves were rolled up over his forearms. There were bands of new skin around his wrists and a white scar stretching across the back of one hand. Aragorn frowned.

“Finish your meal,” he said kindly. ‘Then, if you feel up to it, you can join us or sleep if you wish. Come, Halbarad. We need to take counsel with the others about the next step on our road.”

“If it’s all right with you, I’d just as soon stay here,” the older ranger said with a beady eye on Veil who seemed obliquely unconcerned about the other’s scrutiny.

“He is not a prisoner but a guest and you will treat him like one, Halbarad. Come on.”

At their chief’s summons, the men gathered round though they were weary and stumbling from the long labor of building the cairn. Angrad looked as though he would fall asleep where he sat but he straightened obediently when Aragorn’s eyes fell on him. “Wh-what are we going to d-do now?”

Aragorn wished he had the answer to that question. He sighed and passed a hand through his hair. “We keep going. Seven of the Imladris guard are unaccounted for. They may still be alive.”

“But go where? We have no idea where they were headed,” Eldacar interjected hesitantly, not wanting to sound like he was badgering his chief.

“We haven’t crossed their path yet. It stands to reason they would follow the road,” Halbarad suggested, always ready to back up his leader.

“But that’s just more guessing…” A ranger sitting to the left of one of the fires said.

“Well, it’s better than nothing,” Another intervened.

“Better than a blind road? We don’t know where we’re going or what we’re getting into.”

“That doesn’t matter; we can’t leave them out there.”

“I’m not saying we should! But we should at least find out—”

“Deadman’s Dike.” A hush fell instantly when their chieftain said the name. Aragorn’s eyes glinted in the reddish light as he glanced around at his men. “Fornost. You said that was where you found orcs the first time didn’t you, Halbarad?”

Halbarad bit his lip but nodded. “I did.”

“It is still a haunt of evil. Maybe the orcs needed a place of safety. They might make for it,” To torture their captives in peace, he added bitterly to himself.

The rangers exchanged dark glances but their faces were filled with resolve except for Angrad who had gone pale and silent.

Aragorn’s eyes ran around the circle of his exhausted troop. “That’s enough for one night. Get some rest while you can. Halbarad, set a watch.”

Halbarad jumped to it. “Angrad, you dozy lump, since you felt the need to sleep halfway through your chief’s speech, you can have first watch.”

The younger man groaned as he pushed himself to his feet and cast the ginger-haired warrior a glare.

Aragorn touched Halbarad’s shoulder and indicated the young man with his eyes. “Perhaps, my friend, you shouldn’t be so hard on him. He’s as exhausted as the rest of us, maybe more so given his recent injuries.”

Halbarad snorted. “Recent injuries, my left foot. He just doesn’t want to stand watch. I’ve had to practically yank him by the ear to do anything of late. Toughness is the only way through to him, trust me. He’s got to learn he can’t let pain overrule him. A warrior bears his injuries with pride not whining.”

Worn out, Aragorn didn’t press the issue further and sank onto his bedroll. With a firmer resolve now that he knew where he was going, his hand pulled the saber into his lap.

“Bet that’s worth a small fortune.”

Aragorn lifted his eyes slowly to find Veil watching him. The man had shifted his position nearer the ranger and his pale eyes were fixed on the beautiful, filigree-traced weapon. “More than you know.”

“Do you always carry two then?” he nodded at the broadsword Aragorn had stuck in his belt.

“The saber doesn’t belong to me.”

“It belongs to an elf.”

“How do you know that?”

Veil gave him a crooked smile. “Heard you talking. You think some of your friends were taken?”

“By orcs.”

The scarecrow man’s hands clenched into fists. The scars on his wrists shone lurid white. “Then they’re dead.”

“I don’t believe that,” Aragorn answered with steady calm though his heart had started to pound again. Angrad was watching them from across the camp. When he noticed his leader’s scrutiny, the young man quickly started talking to Eldacar.

Veil gave him a look from underneath his lank hair. It was dark and intense. “If they’re not already, they’re going to wish they were.”

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The cells had finally quieted down after the ravers grew too hoarse to ply their trade. Only strangled, muffled sobs broke the miserable silence off to the left in another cell but the cage nearest the north wall corner was easy with deep, heavy breathing.

Torenul dragged his stiff leg right up to the bars and sat beside it. Glancing once around at the tangle of arms, legs and bony faces arranged near his body, he picked up a chunk of rock and tapped out a short rhythm on the iron.

The wolf sentinels’ ears pricked up and one of the guards stirred. With a grunt, he came fully awake and strolled over to the bars. “Whaddya want this time o’ night?”

“I’ve got information—go get Critz.”

The orc curled his lip contemptuously at him.

Torenul insisted, “Come on. They could wake up any second. If you don’t pass it on, you’ll be sorry.”

“Why don’t you tell me and I’ll decide whether or not it’s important enough to bother Critz with. He don’t like being waked you see.”

“Not here,” the slave peered nervously over his shoulder. “Come on. It’s important.”

The orc guard sighed gustily and motioned one of his cronies over. They unlocked the cage door with a rattle and, for the benefit of any listeners and their own pleasure, grabbed the prisoner up roughly, slugging him a few times for good measure.

The exhausted, hagridden slaves within barely stirred.

The orcs dragged him into a deserted corner just off the prison block and dumped him on the ground. “So. What’ve you heard?”

“I won’t talk to anyone but Critz.”

The guard who had first come to his summons kicked him hard. “You’ll talk to us, snaga or I’ll send you to the wolves instead.”

“All right! All right! Just…don’t hit me again.” Shakily Torenul repeated everything he had heard in the cage that night: the cache of ‘weapons,’ the names of the ringleaders and followers. The traitor spilled it all.

The guards glanced at one another and the thicker one muttered, “Go get Critz.”

The orc leader emerged from a dark passageway a few minutes later with the littler one on his heels looking bloodshot and foul-tempered. His impatient shrill echoed off the stone. “What?”

The guard repeated what he had heard the prisoner say and Critz’s irritation vanished in an instant. He stared hungrily at Torenul as though trying to read his mind. “You had better not be lying to me, boy.”

“I’m not lying. You know I’ve given you sound information before.”

The orc leader folded his arms. “What do you want for this?”

“Transfer. I’ll work the fields but get me out of those damn, plague-ridden pits.”

“All right. It’s done.”

Torenul blinked. “Just like that? You agree and it’ll happen.”

“You doubt my word?”

“No, no, of course not,” the man shook his head posthaste.

“You still haven’t told me when they are going to try this little rebellion.”

Torenul twisted his fingers together. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know,” Critz repeated, widening his red eyes. “So, the elf and this slave girl are planning a traitorous mutiny under the master’s very eyes and you don’t know when.”

“It shouldn’t be that hard to find out…” Torenul realized he sounded more defensive and sullen than he meant and tensed, knowing his captors’ tempers were unpredictable. He amended quickly. “I could question them…find out more…”

But Critz chipped a flake off the wall with his nails, reflective. “I have an idea.”

“Are you going to torture them? What about the elf? He knows a lot and he’s a rabble-rouser,” Despite himself, Torenul’s eyes gleamed. “Warping Sayna’s mind with false hopes.”

Critz drank in the man’s obvious frustration and jealousy and realized he could pierce this fish’s big mouth with more than one hook. The laugh lines at the corners of his crimson eyes crinkled. “You’d like that wouldn’t you? Fine then. Find out ‘when’ and you’ll get your transfer and the elf.”

With a sudden violent movement the orc grabbed the man up and slammed him against the wall. Blazing red eyes inches from the human’s, he snarled. “But play me false, just once, and you’ll wish I’d fed you to my wolf, boy.”

The desperate human’s eyes locked on the crimson ones, mesmerized. “I obey only your command, my lord.”


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Author's Notes: As always, those lovely people who take time out of their schedules to send me a little encouraging note are treated with more adoration than they know (without being creepy).

Best,

The Lady of Light