Vala of Changing Light

Chapter Seven

Hello dear readers. I am in school again so I've been noticeably absent from the site. Here is Chapter Seven for your appreciation and your patience.

'Sakura!'

The voice cut through the focus on the man beneath her who was tense and smelled like the edge of a knife forged in the deep woods. The material separating them was soft with use but thick to protect against the weather, and the skin of his neck visible through his hair was lightly kissed by the sun. She knew just from the size of him that he was made of muscle and power and it would be very bad to just let him go.

But,

'Sakura, please let him go!'

Her verdant eyes flicked up, pinning the hobbit Frodo with a piercing glare. He froze under that look, never having seen her when she was like this, up close and holding a threat in her hands. Her hood had settled around her shoulders, and her hair was spilling around her face in jagged lengths to frame the cold, flat, green. The pupils in her eyes had spiraled down to mere pinpricks floating in the ice, giving the appearance of blindness but also the surreal sense of looking right through him, and she wondered if he was beginning to question the story she told him about being a healer.

She watched him marshal himself however and put it away for later. Now he needed his courage to ask for the stranger's life.

'Please.'

She felt her instincts slither away in the face of his naivety back into the recesses of her thoughts and the muscles in her back slowly relaxed.

'Fine' she said, pulling her knife back and rising off the man's limbs. She hid the blade in a sleeve and tugged her hood back up, compromising with herself that if he had to go free then he didn't also need to know what she looked like. Too many questions and not enough time.

The man got up and turned on his heel just like she thought he would to get a look at his captor but with the hood up again and all her hair tucked away all he would be able to see was a person of questionable gender in a cloak the color of shadow and a hood that cast darkness over her face. He was stymied by her size, barely a foot and a half taller than the hobbits, but regarded her with new found caution and gave her a generous berth. He looked to the hobbit who seemed to be in charge of this party addressing him.

'I know what it is that hunts you. We need to move.'

Out of the corner of the man's eye, he saw the hood of the stranger's cloak twitch in his direction. Frodo looked to the figure, obviously having used up his bravery with his plea and was now looking elsewhere for guidance.

He wondered who could be under that hood. Gandalf had not mentioned anyone other than Frodo and Sam on this mission, so Strider was less than pleased to find not two but four hobbits walk into the pub and with them someone who could only be human herding them along.

All he could see was the cloak that looked as if it were woven from the night itself in a cut he had never seen before and a pair of dark brown boots that he could only describe as child-like planted firmly on the wooden floor.

'Sakura?' Frodo asked, with that name that was also different than any he knew. 'What do we do?'

Strider's skin prickled with goose flesh and he knew the stranger was looking at him. Whoever it was was silent in their inspection of him. A long moment seemed to pass before his skin relaxed and a voice issued forth from the hood, feminine and young.

'If he found us, then so can they. Get your things. We're moving.'

In the darkness of her hood the others couldn't tell that she was tickled, but the fact that all four hobbits could fit on Strider's bed with ease made her smile. They all managed to fall asleep fairly quickly, the only exception being Frodo who sat up and worried the edge of their blanket between his fingers before Sakura covered them with her hand, telling him in soft words that all would be well and she would watch over them while they slept. Under her gentle words he reluctantly lay down and fell asleep, leaving her and the ranger known as Strider alone to wait out the night.

Strider watched her from the seat by the winder, pipe in hand. Her, he thought in a bemused echo. He certainly hadn't seen that coming.

He took a moment to examine what he could see. She leaned against the wall beside the window, arms crossed and facing the outside and he wondered what it was she was watching. While she looked relaxed he had a suspicion that she was anything but. Having heard her voice he knew the stranger to be a female, sounding both light and soft, and her short stature supported that but any physical features were disguised by that odd cloak that covered her from the top of her head to the middle of her shins and the tips of her fingers which he had felt pressing in the skin of his neck when she had had him pinned. The entire time they had been moving the halflings from one place to another the hood had never even rippled, staying stubbornly in place and her refusal to draw it back vexed him.

'I can see no reason to hide so completely,' he prodded, giving her cowl a pointed look. She ignored it.

'How did you get involved in this misadventure?' she asked him. She half twisted to cast a glance behind her to the bed and it was not lost on him how she had placed herself between the hobbits and himself. 'You knew Frodo's name, you spoke of Gandalf. As he is the only one not here that can speak for himself can I draw that he is the one who told you of this journey?'

'Yes, I am a friend of Gandalf the Grey,' he said, irked but willing to let go this time the matter of her blatant disregard for his earlier statement, 'he passed along a message to me, I was to go to Bree in a months time and wait for him and two hobbits.' he looked back out the window, 'when he did not arrive and your party had, I knew something was wrong.'

'I see' she replied, eyes also searching the night beyond the glass. 'Have you any idea where he could be?'

'No' he murmured, settling more comfortably in his chair, 'no I don't.'

Sakura watched the street while every few moments looking up to the rooftops as time crept forward. She could feel Strider's eyes on her whenever she shifted though he gave the appearance of ignoring her. She almost said something, just to spook him, but something indefineable caught her attention and she looked back outside.

The thundering of hooves rose in pitch down in the street and cantered to a stop in front of the building they had been staying in, where five black figures dismounted and entered the tavern, light glinting off the exposed steel of their swords. She glowered at their disappearing figures from the depths of her hood, lips pulled back at the repugnant taste they left in her mouth and the echoing chill that passed through her mind.

A rustle behind her made her turn and she saw the small form of Frodo tossing in his sleep, murmuring to himself as he fought with the blankets that twisted around his legs. She frowned even as she made her way over to him. She freed him from his self-made trap, shaking his shoulder to wake him.

'Frodo, Frodo wake up' his eyes fluttered open to give her a bleary look, 'it's just a dream Frodo. Wake up.'

Skriiiiiiiiiiiii!

She jumped just as the hobbits did at the shrill cries, whipping around to look at the Ranger. Strider continued smoking on his pipe, his eyes on the windows across the way where furtive movement could be seen through the curtains. His non-reaction and continued repose were enough to tell her that he was not surprised by the sound and even knew where it had come from. And she supposed so did she.

It was a terrible noise, like birds of prey and the scraping of glass, mixed with a certain something that inspired chills in any living creature who heard it. She could think of nothing in her life that could equal such a sound, though the sound of weapons clashing and people dying violently could evoke an nearly similar response. It put her in mind of the war she had been a part of back in her home world. It was not a good sound, not at all.

'What are they?' Frodo asked from beside her, looking at the man. The other hobbits were watching the exchange from their places on the bed, scared.

Green eyes glowing in the dark flickered in the flash of lightning. They didn't waver from the rangers' face.

'They were once men,' Strider said darkly, 'Great King's of Men, Then Sauron the deceiver gave them Nine Rings of Power. Blinded by their greed they took them without question, one by one falling into darkness and now they are slaves to his will.

'They are Nazgul, Ring-wraiths, neither living or dead. At all times they feel the presence of the ring. Drawn to the power of the one,' he met Frodo's gaze with piercing blue eyes, 'they will never stop hunting you.'

Great, she drawled mentally, looking at Strider then outside again. We're being followed by the ghost of royalty past.

'We'll have to leave soon.' she said aloud, turning away from the ranger to give Frodo a reassuring smile, 'sleep, you are going to need your rest.'

Frodo nodded, still uncertain, but going back to bed where he fell asleep soon after his head hit the pillow. The smile leaked out of her face. She went back to the window. Strider watched her.

'You should sleep' Strider told her. She cut in before he could continue.

'I would rather stay awake, thanks,' she replied, throwing a glare to the glass where the barest of light flickered through.

'Do you not trust me?' he asked, she nearly scoffed at him.

'It's a little early to be talking about trust.' He frowned at that.

'I just helped you' he retorted, but she shrugged his reply off.

'Look beneath the underneath.'

It was an odd thing to say, but it came easily to her lips as if she had said it many times before. His face must have looked confused because she elaborated.

'Deception is multifaceted and can take any form.' She focused on the rain pouring outside, 'being cautious is not a crime.'

He didn't like it but he conceded her point, but not without trying.

'The others of your party do not have the same instinct.'

This time she did snort, startling him.

'Hobbits are a trusting people, to the point of excess,' she met his gaze, 'Not everyone has had that luxury.' The light reflecting in her eyes gave them a luminescent quality.

Another shrill call outside drew their attention and they forgot what they were talking about.