Personal thanks to all who read and review! I appreciate all the feedback I get, and if you want to ask questions I don't mind :) I am ready to answer there in the header of every new chapter.
There will be Orcish language from time to time in the next chapters, so I will provide the text with translation in footnotes.
No more than a week had passed, but an unprecedented wave of chaos had swept the entirety of Rohan. Everyone felt disturbed because of the events in Gondor. Until recently the people had managed to live and do their business somehow, without being obsessed with the war that was at the moment thrown away from the borderlines for some time, but when a carrier hawk from Minas-Tirith brought the long-awaited dispatch to Meduseld, the explosive mixture of hope and despair spread throughout all the towns and villages.
According to the dispatch, his majesty King Théoden had fallen at the Pellenor plains. He fell proudly, defending the last stronghold of the West. The one who struck him down was the Witch-king, the fiend of the northern tombs, but he was struck down too, by none other than Lady Eowyn! Alone and by herself, not fearful of his deadly witchcraft, she defied the Nazgûl and sent him to the black abyss he came from. The siege was broken, the hordes of Mordor were defeated and Minas-Tirith held out, but the enemy had not yet started a full scale onslaught and no one dared speaking of victory. After counting up the casualties the united forces of Gondor and Rohan mustered their courage and came forth to the doom, to the gates of Morannon, for the decisive, fatal battle…
Aelga kept true to herself. Staying sane was titanically difficult when alternately dreary despair and frenetic, delirious faith in future reigned in her immediate surroundings. She coped with that by shutting herself off from the world with a stone wall of fake indifference. This trick often helped her out, especially at shops where she often had to answer questions about the purpose of her regular purchases.
"What a constant visitor you've become", the apothecary merchant stated. She had come to his store nine times in two weeks and had left behind a tidy sum each time. "What would you like? How does Grandma Noril feel?"
"The same things, please, but three portions all at once", she replied, meaning tarred bandages and bracing tincture. "As for Grandma, everything is sad. She is dying. As for me… what can I do? Just helping her around the house and such.
"Isn't it at your own expense?.."
"Umm… whose else?" Aelga predicted the conversation's angle straight away and pulled herself together.
"You are so kind-hearted", the merchant said in awe but right then clicked his tongue: "Such a kind and pretty girl shouldn't be working. You'd be better as a hearthkeeper with a bunch of kids…"
How badly she wanted to jeer at him! Instead she just feigned being contused in both ears, paid for the goods and got off.
Trevarn was a small and chatty village, but the traders here were mostly guests, so Aelga wasn't afraid of disclosure. After leaving the store she hurried to the market to buy food, a three-fold amount of it, like the remedies she's just bought. The Uruk-Hai named Ûghûrtz, a wounded enemy soldier, taking care of whom had been the center of her life for a half of a month, said he must go and was right. While he stays in Rohan he is in serious peril. He planned to leave the groove just today, and at last she wanted to provide him with some supplies. She felt a little melancholic – contacts with the Uruk, scrappy and brief, had bizarrely filled the void left by the loss of her brother, killed by his compatriots, but their ways were soon destined to part.
"You're shameless!" her inner voice shouted at her. Recently it became quiet but then broke its silence again and now was heartrendingly invoking her conscience. "Got attached to an Orc! Doesn't your soul ache for your kinsmen in the battlefield?!"
But Aelga cut the hysterics short. One did not exclude the other.
Having stuffed her bag at the bazaar she made her way home. Every day off was sacred and, furthermore, she hated wandering about the shops unless they were blacksmiths. Swords, bows, daggers and spears only could she eye for hours, calculating how much she needed to skimp on lunches to buy one or another masterpiece. She held Idvar's rune-adorned sword very dear, but weapons enticed her in general.
No sooner had she enjoyed sweet dreams of a new hunting bow than she was halloaed by those who... didn't despise weapons but thought they were masculine and therefore ineligible fun. Three of her former friends sat on a mound of earth along house walls and clucked about something boring as hell, throwing side glances at her.
"She looks so sour", one of them commented.
"Ha, not a surprise", another one added, "Such a swordslinging recluse she is. Pretends to be a warrior maiden..."
"As if!" the third one shouted, laughing, "She is always hanging out at the pastures, surely prefers stallions to boys!"
"Sourpuss! Spinster!" Aelga heard when passing them by. "Flattits!"
Without wasting her mental strength on them she turned round the corner. These women, for nearly two years leeching off their husbands (who went off to the war, by the way), had always been alien to her so she called them friends just out of habit, since her childhood when they had attended the village school together. Again and again she praised herself for breaking off that senseless relationship.
Home, sweet home. Now she would finally have her dinner and rest before her momentous trip…
Stop. What the Angband?..
The door was ajar and standing by the hitching rail was the familiar bay gelding. The aroma of blackberry tea and fragrant vanilla tarts wafted from the veranda. Oh, fresh, hot, recently baked tarts… Something was wrong here. In December, on her birthday, there had been no tarts for her, but Lodvald, son of Lodhild, who appeared in their house Morgoth knows what for, was not begrudged desserts!
Without making any noise she jumped down from Molly, led her farther away from the "stranger" and tiptoed to the door to prick up her ears. Three voices were talking inside, but alas, she'd missed the most interesting part.
"…in a word, she is a walking disaster. We don't know what we can do", that was father, sipping tea. "How are you?"
"Are you ordered to stay in the Riddermark?" That's mother, washing dishes.
"The whole éored is ordered", Lodvald answered, heartily devouring a treat. "Gondor is Gondor, but our borderlines need guarding too. Some of us were detached to patrols, others were shoved about to the frontiers. Moreover, lately Gondor came to see us in person, so the seniors were entrusted with protecting the rears of the important visitors".
"What visitors?"
"Impo-o-ortant", the warrior spoke in an expressive bass, "From just as important cabinets. Grey, unremarkable people, but must be haughty as they have guards and the paper. On the sixth they had stopped in the Hornburg to talk something over with the King, may he rest in peace, and now they are going to outfit the expedition to Orthanc after the twentieth".
The dishes stopped clattering. Mother gasped, father all but choked over.
"But tss! It's just between us, in honor of our kind friendship, while the messieurs from Gondor prefer it quiet and private".
"Why in blazes are they trying to get to that cesshole?" father asked in a peevish tone, "Saruman has already been taught a lesson!"
"No-no, that's another story. Not for me to know but it is probably a search. Authorized by those who run the show there now", Lodvald lowered his voice. "I have no idea what it's all about as I've never set my eyes on the document, but the people above cite that the sought-for 'must be confiscated and selectively burned'… oh, well, where on earth has your daughter got to?"
"Right here, eavesdropping", Aelga quipped in her mind, "And deadly sleepy".
Flinging the door open, she did not try to look nonchalant. It was her house after all, while Lodvald, son of Lodhild, was boldly overstaying his welcome.
"Aelga!" he exclaimed, rising from the table, and bowed like a proper gentleman. "I'm being sent on an assignment to the frontier post, so dropped in to feast my eyes upon you once more before leaving".
Showing off in front of her family, he complaisantly yet insistently aimed at the collar of her jacket, "helping" her to take it off, but came to grief. She dodged aside and evaded his gallant hands like a snake. The temptation to strike him between his legs despite the hem of his hauberk was exhilaratingly strong.
"Where are your manners?!" Father bawled. Mother gave a squeak but said nothing. "Apologize to our guest, now!"
She cast a resentful glance at them, stole away to her room and was gone.
Aww! Unable to take the turndown at the stable, Lodvald conceived the idea of gaining revenge. It's unknown yet how the war will end, but he had already turned up at her place – no, not to ask her in marriage yet – but expecting that she will not dare reject his wooing in her parents' presence. So naïve of him. She half heard mother's 'oh, she's just being obstinate, you'd better not give up', and her empty stomach stirred. Then Lodvald began making excuses while mother prattled servilely that everything is all right. Finally father blew a gasket, thundering 'now I'll give you what for!', stamped down the corridor after his daughter, and Aelga felt something burst out inside her: 'I'm sick and tired of them!' Her clothes were on, she also had her sword, stiletto and holdall, meanwhile the shutters were wide open, the ground was only ten feet below and waiting down there was Molly. Father's steps and curses were closer and louder. She had never been strapped, but words hurt deeper than beating and this meant it was the time to call up her trusty steed and jump from the windowsill right into the saddle.
When she met the Uruk-Hai in the sunlit glade, he only turned his ear towards her without tearing himself away from his business. Sitting on the moss, he tinkered with his crossbow, screwed on and off some tiny components laid out on a stump before him. Aelga's eyes flared up, hands began itching. She was superficially familiar with crossbow inner structure, but these thingies looked rather unusual and the most mysterious was a small nondescript ball Ûghûrtz had fastened with a cord to a short shaft. The resultant arrow was blunt and seemed useless, but how gently he put it into his pocket hinted otherwise.
"Ellgha", he swung the crossbow over his shoulder, glanced at the Rohan girl and blinked, as if greeting her belatedly.
"Hi. Let's go cook some soup. You won't believe me but I'm a way hungrier than you".
After the meal she felt drowsy. Despite that very same voice's warnings she dozed off, and when the Uruk, having already put on his chainmail, cuirass, greaves and helmet, shook her shoulder, she bolted up and her hand clapped on the hilt of her sword – where did he come from?! how many they are?! Recognizing Ûghûrtz, she playfully punched his armour and he broke into a broad toothy grin. Enjoyed himself, didn't he…
His pathway lay north-east. They had arranged to part on the hill. Beyond that the hilly plain was overgrown with copses merging into the dense forests along the Entwash all the way to the Anduin. He did not want Aelga to accompany him roaming the dark wastelands, but she insisted. Since Eastfold was her home grounds she knew roughly which places the patrols oversaw frequently and which ones they seldom happened to watch. She rode, he hiked along at a quick pace. There was no other way because there would be no room for the both of them on the horseback, even if Molly, having eventually become used to Ûghûrtz, let him get into the saddle. Sometimes he broke into a run and Aelga caught up with him at a trot, wondering how he did not get out of breath with all the metal on. If Uruk-Hai are so sturdy then how do they relate to humans?
Hour after hour the light faded and then came windy, cold night. Strong eastern wind blew in their faces, the clouds' shadows were racing across the steppe as if they were enormous black horses, and it subtly smelled like rain.
"Where will you go then?" the girl asked and dismounted, when they were having their third or fifth rest and walked through the wet grass, relaxing but not stopping. As for her home, her mommy and daddy who had drunk her blood quite enough for today, she did not want to recall them yet.
"I have nowhere to go and no one waits for me. Even if there are any survivors beside me, I don't know where to seek them. But I want to live, Ellgha… I haven't yet lived really. I'm only thirteen months old.
A year and a month! Yes, it was exactly like what that memorable banner-bearer had pontificated. After birth, whatever it had been like, their growth was actually accelerated with the aid of black magic. Definitely some witchery was in it, for even at such a young age Ûghûrtz was physically adult and able to speak - some scholars of language would call it a disgusting blend of Westron, Rohirric and Mordorin, also known as the Black Speech, but he could speak and comprehend and was familiar with the Riddermark geography. He had no childhood but, honestly, Aelga didn't think it was wrong. Giant, muscled and sharp-toothed from the first seconds of life, he had never been frail and helpless… but there was also a fatal weakness: Saruman had bred Uruks in the war and for the war, and they had no distinct goals out of the war! Ûghûrtz's entire life had consisted of training and, being torn out of his destroyed world, he was not adapted to anything else. Soon he could be killed, no matter by whom, be it Rohirrim, Gondorians or some stray Orcs. Aelga felt how something new, barely discovered was slipping away from her irreversibly, but she didn't have heart to say it out loud…
Here was the hill, sloping and wooded. The moment of parting drew nearer. Both of them were stretching time and knew it.
"I see you've gotten into the habit of visiting the geyser", she remarked teasingly. The sky beyond the running clouds was bright, starry, lilac, like the eyes on the black face near her. "Got to the core of bathhouse charms, aren't ya?"
"I had gotten into it as early as in the barracks. We're not such soap-dodgers", Ûghûrtz giggled, "We smear ourselves with clay before going to battle or reconnaissance. It gives us camouflage and protects from gnats. Life was quite rough in Isengard, but unlike in your fortress there was a proper water-supply."
"Oh yeah, and now there is even more than plenty… oops, I hope I didn't touch a raw nerve".
"You didn't", he assured. Several days ago she told him about the doom of Isengard and the wizard, and he felt upset but took everything into account as a summary of operations. "That was the past and it had sunk".
"Had it sunk, no one would have striven to 'confiscate and selectively burn' it", Aelga disagreed, citing Lodvald who had cited the document allegedly read by the commanders of his éored.
"Confiscate what?" the immediate question followed. The Uruk-Hai stopped in his tracks. Giving her a sharp piercing look he asked again: "Burn what?"
"Well, I dunno. Some crucial papers might have been left in Orthanc, and some special officers from Gondor are going to…
She didn't finish the phrase. A hurricane gust came down on them, muffling her last words… and more. The wind whistled and howled so strong that they failed to hear the thud of hooves! From behind, from the leeward side they were being approached by a mounted patrol and it was too late to scuttle.
The riders probably had an encampment somewhere southward. The wind blew away and dispersed their scent, so Ûghûrtz smelled nothing, while the horses smelled him instantly. Whatever the patrollers had been doing – napping, having their supper or playing cards – they forgot everything to track and kill.
"Run!" Aelga yelled, "Run into the forest, now!"
Ûghûrtz twitched in the mentioned direction, so that his hair lashed on her face, but still stayed where he was. After comparing the distance to the cover and the one to the patrol he suddenly shook her by the shoulders:
"Ellgha, who were those men and what did they want to confiscate?"
"Are you an idiot?" she was astounded by his thick-skulled stubbornness, "Run! I'll distract them!"
It wasn't difficult to guess how the riders interpreted what they have just seen.
There were seven of them. The two in the front had already drawn their bows, no more than a hundred yards left between them and the target, but that would not last forever. The next moment Aelga caught on to why Ûghûrtz did not flee. He intentionally allowed the patrol to come twenty yards closer. Then he yanked his crossbow from behind his back, took that very same blunt arrow out of his pocket, got down on one knee and aimed…
"Htol-latu*", he growled in the Black Speech, pulling the trigger.
Flames lit up the night.
The explosion was by no means as destructive as the one that smashed in the Hornburg wall, but, had they been closer, their ears would have popped. The patroller's ears did, as sure as sure can be. Then the air was rent by a bloodcurdling scream and the starlight glittered on a shield, thrown away by a rider that torn off a burning glove and began desperately tossing his hand. To the credit of the rest of them, the line didn't get rumpled, but two horses reared and hampered the pursuit. Aelga watched this in stupefaction. What resembled a harmless child's toy in fact turned out to be an unknown, never yet seen weapon. Well, really something like that was popular with Dwarves… but those were miner bombs for blasting works, and this is an explosive arrow!
What she could do? Would she rush to intercept the riders and get trampled down? Or would she prevent the Uruk-Hai from taking aim at them, condemning him to death? Before anybody died, Aelga came up with the bright idea to spring up onto Molly and wedge herself between the hammer and the anvil, but the horse was fussing and neighing in fear, so fate decreed otherwise. And before she could finish this thought the Uruk abruptly seized her – under his arm, as if she was a child, and tight enough for air to leave her lungs – and carried her away into the forest at the speed of a warg.
Why?! He could have run away, just run away while the horsemen were recollecting themselves!
"Let me go!" Aelga started bucking with all her strength, but in vain, although she was far from being a shrinking violet and knew how to stick up for herself. A hefty human like Lodvald could lift or carry her too, until getting thoroughly kicked they would put her down, but in this case that didn't work.
The tree tops closed up, shading the light completely. The patrollers lagged behind so that their cries died away too. No matter how courageous the fighting Mearas horses were, the explosion was too new to them.
The Uruk-Hai ran dashing and leaping, effortlessly jumping over the pits and logs. Like to night-beasts, darkness was not a hindrance to him. Not giving up hope of breaking free, Aelga pummeled him with her fists, tried to wriggle out and hit him in the neck, in the groin or on a knee – but did not succeed as metal was everywhere, and where there was no metal was hard, thick hide. Digging her fingernails into his forearm, she almost broke them and achieved nothing but being re-seized in a way more convenient for him, with her elbows pinned to her sides. So, this is how it happens… this is how those unlucky women must have been kidnapped. She felt so much ashamed that tears started to her eyes, and managed to keep said tears back just due to the fact this was Ûghûrtz. This was Ûghûrtz and he would do her no harm. This was Ûghûrtz who simply took her fleeting baloney of something highly meaningful to him into his head – but still, still the shame burned her like an acid! She was anything but a dainty flower which can be spirited away from home so easily!
"Sorry, I'll explain everything", said Ûghûrtz guiltily into her ear. He keenly felt her mood.
The thicket around became absolutely wild and he slowed his pace, but still kept on holding Aelga. She was no longer trying to escape and silently cursed herself, dangling above the roots and brushwood. Her head began to ache from jolting; everything was swimming before her eyes. She wanted home more than ever. What will become of her parents when the patrollers, having goofed up, report to the Trevarn community about an Orc dragging a girl away into the forest right in front of them?"
"Will you ever set me free after all? My ribs are protesting and… isn't it really hard for you to carry me?"
"I'll set you free beyond the river", he grinned. "Horsemen are not morons, they've got hounds. And it ain't hard for me at all, Ellgha. At the normatives we had to carry each other".
Ûghûrtz got across the Entwash knee-deep in the ice-cold water. The splashes made Aelga draw up her legs and think aloof that, maybe, it is not all that bad to be his luggage. At the right shore he climbed up the cliff, recovered his breath and hastened his step again, but only five minutes had passed before he stood motionless, hid behind a venerable oak and noisily sniffed the air. She didn't like a thing about that… it was very calm there… and then came an unexpected smell of fire and something else from the ravine ahead of them, causing him to perk up and nearly jump about with joy. Still holding her under his arm, he stepped out of the tree with confidence, while emerging from the darkness were three silhouettes of similar height and build.
No! Oh no, not this!
But she had no more strength to cry. Blind fear choked her up. Aelga began thrashing about, taking no notice of unconvincing nonsense Ûghûrtz was saying to bring her to reason, while three Uruk-Hai came closer, two of them with swords atilt and one holding a bow. Their eyes gleamed yellow, orange and crimson.
"Shit, if it isn't Amethyst!" marveled and dumbstruck, the archer said after examining the newcomer.
"Amethyst!" the swordsmen roared. Then one of them ran off to the ravine and barked: "Guys, Amethyst is alive!"
"Amethyst's got meat!" the third one added, and Aelga became petrified.
"She is not meat!" Ûghûrtz snarled menacingly, grabbing her with both of his arms to shield her from his kinsmen.
And that was the last she heard before swooning into unconsciousness.
*Htol-latu - literally "fuck you" or "fuck off" (the "official" BS, indeed).