~T.A. 2957

The boy watched from the shadow of a tall clump of hawthorn bushes as the lone man made about breaking his fast. He had caught a brace of rabbits that day and was skinning them now with deft strokes from a hunting knife. His face was relaxed, a thin smile on his bearded lips as he lost himself in the simple task. The boy had scoffed when the man had sent a prayer up for the souls of the rabbits, sneering at the sentimentality and thinking himself lucky to have found such a soft mark.

To the man's side sat a satchel, large enough for a week's worth of provisions, including the bedroll and cooking equipment that he had already unpacked. But that was not the finest prize in the camp.

The sword rested next to the man, within reach should he need it. The boy's attention had been locked on the sword since he had arrived at the sight, marvelling in the design of the scabbard and the handle. He very much hoped that in a few moments, when the man would leave the camp to investigate a noise, he would neglect to take the sword with him.

The man raised his head, the shriek that had alerted him echoing around the glade. It had the desired effect; the man rose and, much to the boy's disappointment but not measurable surprise, took up his sword before exiting the camp.

After a moment's brief pause to ensure he had truly gone, the boy swiftly left his place of concealment and crossed to the pack. He did not linger to examine the haul, simply pushing all into the satchel and swinging it over one shoulder before snatching the knife from the ground and departing as speedily as he had come. He set off at a brisk pace, not slow but not fast enough that he did not take care to cover his tracks. Once he was certain there could be no means to find him he rested his back against the trunk of a tree and slid to his haunches. One large root of the tree rose up to his right, the other side of him a hillock that shielded him from view. He let out a silent sigh and then opened the pack, allowing himself a grin of triumph at the contents. At the bottom of the satchel sat a money pouch, heavy enough to indicate a long period of hot dinners in is future; he also found two books, both in script he could not recognise, though he knew by the shape that they were not in the common tongue. One book was thin and bound in a red leather, the other felt soft to the touch like velvet and was much thicker, some loose pages falling as he opened it. He quickly scooped them up, not for the book's sake but for his own – the last he wished was to be tracked by an actual paper-trail.

The softest of sounds brought him back to full alert and he took up his new hunting knife in his hand, standing with silent wariness. The forest around him seemed still, not even a bird to bring disquiet on the scene. Suddenly the boy lunged but his thrust missed its target. The man deflected the knife hand, giving it a smarting blow to drop the weapon before twisting it effectively behind the boy's back.

The boy gasped, in shock and sudden fear, aiming a punch at the man's arm. The blow landed but the man gave it no heed, simply reaching over his shorter opponent and catching the free arm by the wrist. He twisted both arms then behind the boy, bringing them up so that the fingertips almost touched the nape of his own neck. Then he bent his head down, so that the thin lips could say softly into the boy's ear.

'Did you set the snare?'

'Aye, so what?' the boy snarled, struggling with all his might but unable to get free. He stamped down with his heavy soled boots, trying to catch the man's feet but failing. Then he kicked like a horse but the strike missed once more, the man seeming to be able to be wherever the boots were not.

'And did you set the snare to trap and injure, but not kill?' the man asked, his tone the same measure of quiet calm. It was a voice one could not think of disobeying, a voice of pure authority that brooked no defiance.

'How else would you have heard it?' the boy snapped.

'Ah, I see.' The boy felt a surge of dread at that soft-spoken statement and then let out a startled grunt as he was suddenly hauled backwards.

In a few deft moments the man had seated himself upon the raised tree-root, one hand holding the boy's wrists whilst the other tugged him onto his lap. One long leg lifted up and entwined the boy's two own between it and its partner, pressing together in a way that made movement impossible.

'What are you doing? Let me go!' the boy shouted in sudden apprehension. He pushed against the man's thighs with his torso, pressing the tips of his toes into the ground to try and find purchase to fight the man's adult weight. He squirmed, trying to roll off the end of the man's knees but to no avail.

'Be still,' the man commanded and his tone was such that the boy almost obeyed. Instead he let forth a torrent of foul language, snarling against his captivity and twisting his body as hard as he was able.

The man sighed above him. 'Why is it always the Orkish words of least merit that linger longest in the minds of men?' he asked to himself with a shake of his head. 'Be still lad for this is a punishment you have sore earned, at the cost of an innocent's needless suffering.'

The boy spluttered his enraged disapproval at this statement. 'If you're going to kill me then do so,' he snarled. 'Coward!'

'Nay, little thief, your crime, though grave, was not so much as to warrant treatment in equal measure,' the man said, the hint of a smile about his grim features. 'You trapped and caused suffering to an innocent creature to serve your own purposes, and that deed cannot go unpunished.'

The boy swore again, this time with words that caused even the well-travelled man to pause for a moment.

'Perhaps you do not yet realise the gravity of your position?' he smoothly suggested.

A moment of disquiet followed until the boy felt the hem of his britches being grasped. He shouted in alarm as the feeling of nakedness brushed over him, his backside bared in one swift tug of fabric. The britches bunched on his mid-thighs where the man's legs trapped them but they still lay much too low for the lad's comfort.

'Let me go!' he shouted. 'I swear, I will kill you!'

'What such an incentive for me to obey,' the man said with a smile before he lifted his free hand into the air. It sailed down towards the boy's bottom, landing with a satisfying SLAP in the centre. The boy jolted forwards, sucking in a deep breath as the sting reached him. Then he set to struggling with renewed vigour.

The man then laid smack after smack down upon the boy's backside, not faltering for a moment during the lad's continuous, unrelenting struggle, mirrored by language so appalling that the man thought even Orks might blush to hear them. He struck first one then the other cheek, keeping a steady rhythm for some moments before shifting to a new area. Even the thighs were not safe from his blows, eliciting the most frenzied of the struggles from his captive.

Throughout the punishment the boy swore but not once did a cry or plea for mercy pass his lips. The air was positively blue by the time he began to weary, the wriggling lessening and the pushing becoming weaker until he had not the strength to continue. His shouts had subsided into gasps for breath, hisses of pain escaping through clenched teeth, more in anger and frustration than any other emotion, the man suspected. His fists clenched, the knuckles whitening as he dropped his head, panting with the effort he had expended.

Still the man continued the assault upon a posterior now a bright crimson in colour, he had struck silently since the first blow but now saw that his words might reach the lad.

'Perhaps you are coming to feel how the rabbit in the snare did before I ended its misery?' he asked, not expecting an answer. 'To be completely trapped, helpless against a pain that it could do nothing about. No matter its struggles or cries, the pain continued as the wire bit deep into the flesh of its leg.' As he said this the man focused his strikes on the thighs, causing the boy to jerk and grunt in now unconcealed discomfort.

'Are you going to kill me too then?' the boy demanded, his voice hoarse, tears choked back against a wall of stubbornness high enough to rival Minas Tirith's. There was a hint of fear in his voice; a slight measure of futility that the man hoped would grant him an opening.

'I said to you that your crime did not merit such a path,' the man said solemnly. 'Do you understand why I am punishing you?'

'Because I stole your pack,' the boy whined.

The man sighed and shook his head. He dropped his left knee, holding the wrists to steady the boy as he fell forwards slightly, enough to tilt the base of his buttocks heavenwards. Then he took to smacking this area with solid blows, his face creased into a grim scowl.

'Hngh!' the boy let out the first signal of pain he had so far allowed but then fell silent, pressing his eyes closed. 'Alright, alright! I'm sorry I snared that rabbit!'

'Your fault did not lie in the snaring, but in the improper manner that you carried it out,' the man retorted, not letting up his assault for a moment. 'You deliberately set the snare so that the poor creature would not meet a swift end!'

'It was just a stupid rabbit!' the boy howled. He clenched and unclenched his hands in the desperate need to rub at the deep burn in his rear.

'No creature's suffering should pass unremarked,' the man said sternly. 'Only then can a man truly see all the merit in life.'

'Fine! Fine, I'm sorry!' the boy wailed, gasping deeply laboured breaths but not yet shedding tears.

The man considered the boy beneath him for a moment, knowing that it would only be through true abandonment of his pride that the boy would thoroughly learn his lesson. But the skin beneath his hand was beginning to show the first signs of bruising and he saw other signs that tears from the lad may be sorely won.

With a last peppering of spanks against the fullest part of the boy's backside he swung him up, righting his breeches before he could even think to protest. He was not overly harsh on the action but did not seek to soften the movement of the hide against sore flesh.

Surprised by this new sensation the boy cried out, if only softly and then snarled at the man, his face flushed bright red with embarrassment, as his hands were bound before him. He glared down at the man as he bent to tie his ankles, thinking of kicking him but lacking the strength to carry out such a deed. The man hauled him into a seated position in the cleft of the tree and then set about gathering his belongings. The two rabbits were paired and soon sat wrapped in leaves beneath a campfire that the man set in a pile of gathered rocks. He paid the boy no mind as he worked but his demeanour suggested to him that any movement on the boy's part would result in further reprimand.

'What is your name?' he asked eventually, when water was bubbling in a pot on the fire and the scent of cooking meat reached their nostrils.

The boy weighed the option of staying silent against the very real danger of another painful lesson and chose the lesser of the evils. 'Trueflight.'

The man lifted his head, contemplating the boy through his wave of dark-brown hair. 'You are Haradrim,' he said, inviting further explanation. He was not surprised, the boy's dark skin and black hair had allowed him to guess as much. The Southron tribes had been calm lately but he wondered at the child's appearance so far north, and in his command of the common tongue.

The boy nodded, raising his chin defiantly but offered no more insight. 'Might I know the name of my captor?' he asked sarcastically.

The man eyed his charge with grey eyes. They were old eyes, set in a youngish face, but filled with a deep sadness that the boy felt a small pang of kinship to. 'In these parts I go by Strider.'

The boy's body stiffened at the name but in no other way did he show his disquiet. 'You're a ranger,' he said, the words almost an accusation.

'Aye, I am,' the man eyed the boy with slight mirth. 'You do not hold us in very high regard?'

The boy looked away. 'What will you do with me?' he asked, the tone now near defeat.

'That has me in a quandary,' Strider admitted. 'I would ask where your parents are but I believe returning you to them may not be the kindest course of action.' He raised an eyebrow at the boy's confused look. 'I have recently been quite directly acquainted with your backside,' he reminded the lad, '...and the scars upon it,' he continued, his tone now quite serious. 'Some look fair new.'

The boy's lightening colour blossomed bright red once more on his cheeks. He avoided the ranger's look, glaring mutely at the fire. 'You could let me go,' he suggested, not a hint of hope in his tone.

Strider quirked a smile. 'To terrorise more travellers?' he shook his head. 'You are too skilled by half, young thief, to be let loose without guidance.'

'I've managed so far just fine!' the boy snapped.

'So you have,' the ranger soothed. 'You seem to have had a good teacher... or bad, as the case may be.'

The boy snorted. 'Not in what's most important,' he said, and then his eyes lit up in a flash of inspiration. 'You could though.' He leant forward eagerly. 'Could you teach me how to wield a sword?'

Strider stared across at the lad for a long moment, surprised if nothing else by the boy's sudden change in sympathies towards the man who had so recently chastised him. It worried him that the boy found it so easy to change allegiance for the sake of a beneficial circumstance. 'Nay, lad,' he said, 'there is nothing good I can teach a lad with eyes filled with such a great bloodlust as yours.'

'Please,' the boy begged, his face set stony and his will adamant. 'Teach me!'

'My decision cannot be altered,' the ranger said. 'But if you are set on learning then best by a good master than one who cannot also teach moderation of temper.' He ran long fingers over his lips in contemplation. 'I know of a good master who could teach you if you were willing, you would learn a trade as a soldier of Gondor.'

The boy's rising eagerness dwindled to the end of the ranger's words and he shook his head vigorously. 'Not Gondor.'

'You have a particular aversion to the place?'

The boy shook his head again. 'No cities.'

The ranger smiled at this, knowing the northern tribesmen and their aversion to large fortresses of stone. 'Very well, then you shall continue with me to the west where I may beg favour with those in Mirkwood's halls to take you. They are famed more for their bowmanship but there are skilled and brave men there to teach you what you wish to know.'

'You're travelling over the mountains?' the boy asked, a creeping fear in his voice.

Strider nodded, keeping his curiosity at bay for the time being. 'I have an errand to fulfil that takes me along those paths,' he explained.

'And you'll introduce me to a swordmaster?' the boy asked, his question too much filled with hope for Strider's liking.

'Aye, if that is truly your wish,' Strider replied, hoping that in the short month that it would take for them to reach the realms of Mirkwood that he could instil in the boy a little more joy of living than the lust he could see in the lad for death.

What's in a name?: Tolkien does not go into detail about the Southron tribes in his books or appendices and there is no mention of names to draw inspiration from for this fic so I decided that; given that both Tolkien and Jackson chose tribe-like peoples to base the Haradrim off of, and given that the name would be a translation from Southron language into Common, that a tribal name would suit him.

Reviews welcome!

TBC