The golden haired young woman cried out to her son, telling him to run. Rakhan skidded to a stop before her, flooded with the sour scent of her terror. Her ankle was twisted—likely broken—but she pulled herself up and stumbled away from Rakhan, snatching her son's hand and dragging him away.
Then, from the direction of the cave, Rakhan heard the sharp shout of a man: "Orcs!" A moment later, three dozen more Dunlanders—a raiding party on their way to despoil the villages of Rohan while its warriors were in Gondor—poured down the hill.
The woman was so consumed by her fear of Rakhan that she didn't seem to notice the true danger, but the Uruk-hai boy was sharply perceptive. "Get down," Rakhan growled to him, and he dropped like a trained soldier.
Rakhan bundled the woman into his arms and brought her to the ground. She fought and twisted in his arms—a delicious feeling—and made to scream. Rakhan covered her mouth with his wide hand and hissed in her ear, "Be still or they will find you!"
He lay on top of her back, pressing her into the small, brush-filled ditch. She shook as hard as the earth before it broke under the Black Gate. The Dunlanders streamed through the trees only a stone's throw away, and finally the woman went limp, her wide sky-blue eyes staring in horror at the wild, heavily armed men. Rakhan gazed sideways at the boy, and put a finger over his lips. The child nodded and lay still, silent, watchful. If he was frightened, Rakhan couldn't tell.
The men went on, finally disappearing into the darkness of the forest. Sure that finally, they were all gone, Rakhan exhaled softly. His release of tension was a trigger to the woman, and she began to thrash and twist again, clawing at Rakhan with desperate fury.
"Mother, it's all right!" the boy insisted. "The bad ones are gone!"
She heard nothing, saw nothing but the Uruk-hai on top of her, hard and heavy as stone. Rakhan was overwhelmed by the woman's raw gut terror. He snatched her arms and pinned them, and realizing that she couldn't fight him she seemed to melt beneath him, letting out a choked sob before she fell into darkness.
Rakhan backed off, squatting over her. He plucked an oak leaf from her braided hair, then looked down at her ankle, swelling inside her rough-made leather boot. He felt the boy's penetrating blue-green eyes boring holes in him.
"You look like me."
"Aye," Rakhan said quietly. "She's hurt. Let's get her to your cave. The Dunlanders are gone for now, but I don't like that they were here at all. We'd do right to get your mother hidden safe."
Rakhan lifted the woman easily, cradling her in his arms. The boy jumped up, trotting alongside Rakhan. "What did you call those men?"
"Dunlanders. Wild men who live over the mountains on the other side of this forest. They'll be making a raid on Rohan, and likely coming back this way."
The boy frowned, perplexed. Clearly the woman had told him nothing of her own origins, or of the world outside the forest. "Why did they want to hurt Mother?"
"Because she's beautiful. So let's be quick and quiet, and hide her away."
The child bit his lips with sharp white teeth. He was bursting with questions, his world thrown about and re-shaped right before his eyes. But he obeyed Rakhan, skipping through the forest beside him. He led Rakhan into his cave, which was surprisingly long and large. The smell of smoke, herbs, and dried apples permeated the air, along with the smell of horseflesh. The horse was kept in the back, the way peasants kept their most prized livestock in their huts. It stamped its feet anxiously at the new, frightening scent of Rakhan.
There was a wide bed on the floor, a mattress made of leather sewn together with sinew and stuffed soft, with thick wolf-pelts spread over the top. Rakhan lay the woman down as gently as he could, asking the boy, "Your mother killed for this?"
"She can shoot anything," the boy said brightly. "She is teaching me… But I've never seen a bow like yours!"
Rakhan grunted softly, and unslung his black bow. The Uruk-child's eyes widened in glee, and he took it in his small hands and tried to pluck the string. It wouldn't budge for him, and Rakhan grinned. "You'll need to get a little bigger to use the likes of this."
Rakhan studied the child: his skin was the same shadowed grey-bronze as Rakhan's, but his features were slightly softened, showing more of a human influence in the roundness of his face. He was slender, too; Rakhan wondered if he would bulk up as he grew.
"Who sired you, young one?"
The boy looked up blankly.
"Men call it a father. Have you a father?"
The child, confused, shook his head. So: she had said nothing to him of that, either. Perhaps she'd been raped on a raid. It would fit, then, her not wanting to speak of it to the child.
"My name is Gaelen," the boy said.
"Rakhan. Tell me, Gaelen, have you any way to heat water, anything to put into a stew? Your mother will wake hurt and hungry. I'll need some bandages as well, to fix up that ankle."
The boy returned the bow, and jumped up to collect venison and root vegetables from the buried, stone covered larder at the side of the cave. Rakhan stirred up the small hearthfire, and the boy set up some contraption of greenwood over the fire. He showed Rakhan a large leather sack and said, "Mother heats water or soup in this, high over the fire. There is fresh water in the bowl over there, mother made it from leather and wood and lined it with clay. She can make anything." Gaelen paused for a moment, and then added, "But she's lucky you came to save her. Who are you, anyway?"
Rakhan snorted softly and replied, "I'm not sure anymore, young one. I was a warrior… someone who fights and kills for someone else. Most of my kind are dead now, or hiding. I am alone in the forest, trying to find my way."
"You lost the fight," Gaelen summarized cleverly.
"We lost the war. Keep the fire hot, boy, while I cut up the meat."
The woman woke to the scent of bubbling stew. Rakhan was ready for her to be upset at his presence, but he was unprepared for the sheer violence of her fear. She would have ran away on her broken ankle had he not grabbed her in his massive arms. Certainly, her kind had cause to feel an Uruk-hai on sight, but could she not tell that she was safe in her own place, with food being cooked to warm her belly?
There's something wrong with her mind, Rakhan realized, and he spoke softly in her ear, over her wild sobbing, "Steady, woman. I'm not here to hurt you, and you're upsetting your child."
As she fought helplessly, Rakhan noticed a vicious scar on her throat, as if someone had ripped a chunk of the smooth pale flesh away. It extended beneath the high collar of her dress, and he could only imagine what had happened. He thought he saw teeth marks in her mangled flesh.
She would not yield until he overpowered her, clutching her body so tight that she couldn't move. He couldn't help being powerfully excited by the feeling of the sweet-smelling woman pressed in his arms, but he tried to ignore it. And then the woman's strength rushed away again, as she realized that she was trapped, and she keened a high, mournful wail. "Come, Gaelen," Rakhan told the disturbed boy. "Let your mother feel your hands and see your face. She's lost in fear."
The boy hurried to his mother and took her face in his small hands. "You're safe, Mother," he told her urgently, "Rakhan has saved us, and he's making you a nice stew. And if any bad men come back, he will kill them, won't you Rakhan?"
"Hush about that," Rakhan said sharply. She didn't need to hear talk of killing. But it was working, thankfully. The woman's eyes began to focus on her child, and her sobbing turned to gasps. A shudder tore through her.
"Please let me go," she whispered.
"I don't want you to run, lady. I think you've broken your ankle. If I let you go, will you be still and let me bind it for you?"
She was silent for a while, except for her shallow, panicked breathing. Then she cried, "Please don't take me away!"
"I'm not going to take you anywhere, lady. The war is over, and I'm living alone in the forest. I've no reason to harm you. I want to speak with you, and your son. I've never seen a young one of my kind before. He is clever, and full of life. He is more fortunate than he knows to have such a mother."
Again, silence, as if she was hearing her own tortured memories and it took Rakhan's voice a long while to penetrate through them. Finally she asked, "The war has ended? How? When?"
"Two turns of the moon back. I can't be sure exactly; time is strange here in the forest. But Lugburz—Barad-dur, you know it as—has fallen. Sauron is defeated and Saruman is long diminished. There is a new king in Gondor, lady, and a new king of Rohan as well."
"Prince Theodred?"
Rakhan closed his eyes over the memory of the golden prince of Rohan, spitted on an Uruk-hai pike. "No. Another, I don't know his name, but he is bright and fierce. And I am hunted… as your son will be. I would protect him, and you. Now, can I release you? Will you be calm? You seem to feel no pain, lady, but you will cripple yourself for life if you keep jumping up on that bad foot."
She drew a hard breath, and looked to her son. The boy was frowning at Rakhan's words, not understanding why he should be hunted by anyone. But Gaelen was a deeply sensitive child, and he shook aside his own frightened thoughts and smiled at his mother. "We are lucky for Rakhan, Mother. He isn't going to hurt you. Let him fix your ankle."
She nodded tightly, in spite of herself, and Rakhan reluctantly let her go. Her warmth lingered against his chest long after she scurried away from him, sliding to the other side of the bed. Rakhan reached for the small leather pouch at his belt, and retrieved a small tin flask. "Drink a sip or two. It is hot, but it will dull your pain." And your fear, Rakhan thought.
She took a small sip, making a sour face as the fiery liquid hit her belly. But it's warming virtue spread through her body, casting a haze over her sharp pain and terror. Drunk, she lay back on her bed, and Rakhan smiled to himself. He should have poured it down her throat at the beginning, and saved himself some trouble. Sure that she was deeply under the mellowing effects of the Uruk-hai fire-water, Rakhan took her foot carefully and set it on his lap. Even medicated, the woman shivered at his touch, a physical reaction that could not be sedated like her mind.
"I'll have to cut the boot, but I will sew it for you later."
She nodded, her dark honey lashes fluttering over her bright blue eyes. Sure that she would not take fright again, Rakhan asked the question that was burning him with curiosity. "Tell me, woman. How is it that you have an Uruk-hai child? I did not know such things were possible."
Her eyes widened instantly, flushing with tears. Rakhan wondered if he ought not to have asked. Her voice was clear and sharp, "You do not know? How could you not?"
Rakhan shook his head. "I've no idea."
The woman—only able to think of it sedated—took a harsh breath and said, "I was in Isengard, Uruk. I was a captive chained in the pits of Isengard."